Crowds of Kurds pelted journalists and police with stones in the quake-hit city of Van as their anger at the Turkish media's coverage of the disaster boiled over.

The quake came only days after one of the deadliest attacks on the army in the three-decade-long Kurdish conflict and some journalists and bloggers have tried to portray the tragedy as payback time.

Survivors have been particularly upset by comments by Muge Anli, a presenter on the ATV commercial network, who said Kurds now wanted the help of police and soldiers whom they had been hunting down "in the mountains like birds".

And Duygu Canbas, an anchorwoman on the Haberturk 24-hour news channel, was forced to apologize after saying on air that she felt sorry for the victims of the quake "even though" it happened in the mainly Kurdish Van province.

While both broadcasters have faced calls to resign, they have also received plenty of support on Twitter and Facebook. One tweet for example hailed the quake as "God's wrath on Van... God does what the Turkish Republic could not do".

The stoning of the reporters in the eponymous provincial capital, which left several people injured, was brought to a halt only after police used pepper-spray.

"Nobody takes care of us because we are Kurds," one resident of Erces, the worst-hit town, told AFP in a makeshift tent camp.

Some Kurdish leaders however have been impressed by the response not only of the authorities but also from the public.

Donations have been flooding in from all around the country, including blankets and clothing, giving a huge boost to the efforts of groups such as the Turkish Red Crescent who have set up 4,000 tents as shelter for quake victims in the worst hit city of Ercis, The Associated Press reported.