Diyarbakir/Ankara: A powerful earthquake killed more than 2,200 people and injured thousands more in Turkey and northwestern Syria on Monday, flattening apartment blocks and wreaking havoc across Syrian cities devastated by years of war.
The 7.8-magnitude quake, which struck before sunrise in the bitter winter weather, was Turkey’s worst this century. It was followed by another major earthquake of magnitude 7.7 in the early afternoon.
It was not immediately clear how much damage had been caused by the second quake, which, like the first, was felt across the region and desperate rescuers struggled to pull victims from the rubble.
“We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us in the house. My two sons are still buried in the rubble, I’m waiting for them,” said a woman with broken arms and her There were wounds on the face. An ambulance near the wreckage of the seven-storey block where she lived in Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey.
The disaster agency put the death toll in Turkey at 1,498. At least 716 people were killed in Syria, according to Damascus government and UN figures.
Poor internet connections and damaged roads between some of the worst-hit cities in southern Turkey, home to hundreds of thousands of people, hampered efforts to assess and respond to the impact.
Temperatures in some areas were expected to drop to near freezing overnight, making conditions worse for people trapped or displaced by the debris. It was raining on Monday after a blizzard hit the country over the weekend.
It is the highest death toll from an earthquake in Turkey since 1999, when a similar magnitude struck the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000 people. were done
President Tayyip Erdogan, who is preparing for a tough election in May, called it a historic disaster and the worst earthquake to hit Turkey since 1939, but said authorities were doing everything they could.
“Everyone is putting their heart and soul into the effort although the winter weather, the cold weather and the earthquake at night makes things more difficult,” he said.
Turkey’s state broadcaster TRT showed the collapse of a building in the southern province of Adana after the second earthquake. It was not immediately clear if he had been ejected.
In Syria, already ravaged by more than 11 years of civil war, the health ministry said 461 people had been killed and more than 1,326 wounded. A UN spokesman in Syria’s rebel-held northwest said 255 people had been killed.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said the earthquake would add to the suffering of millions of Syrians who are already facing a humanitarian crisis caused by the civil war.
In the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, JEE News journalists saw dozens of rescue workers sifting through a pile of rubble, the remains of a large building, and pulling out pieces of debris as they searched for survivors. had been. Sometimes he raised his hands and called for silence, listening to the sounds of life.
Men carry a girl wrapped in a blanket from a collapsed building in the city. In Izmir, drone footage shows rescue workers standing atop a mound of rubble where a building once stood, lifting masonry slabs.
Footage circulating on Twitter shows two neighboring buildings collapsing one after the other in Aleppo, Syria, leaving a street full of dust.
Two residents of the war-torn city said buildings collapsed hours after the quake, whose tremors were also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon.
‘Like the Apocalypse’
A mound of concrete, steel bars and bundles of cloth lies where a multi-story building once stood in the town of Jandares in Syria’s rebel-held Aleppo province.
“There were 12 families under him. Not one came out, not one,” said a thin young man, his eyes wide in shock and his hand bandaged.
Raide Ferez of the Syrian White Helmets, a rescue service in rebel-held territory known for pulling people from the rubble of buildings destroyed by airstrikes, said they were “to save the lives of people buried under the rubble.” “Race Against Time”. .
Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a Syrian in the town of Atreeb, said it felt “like the afterlife”.
A spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Northwest Syria said the death toll in northwestern Syria is expected to rise.
“It just adds to all the layers of suffering,” said Madevi Sun-Soon, the spokeswoman.
In the Syrian government-held city of Hama, JEE News journalist saw an apparently lifeless child being lifted from the ruins of a building.
Syrian state television showed rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and snow. President Bashar al-Assad held an emergency cabinet meeting to assess the damage and discuss next steps, his office said.
In Malatya, Turkey, a rescue worker enters a collapsed building to try to identify a survivor trapped under the rubble, footage released by Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) shows. I.
“What color are you wearing? Are you wearing pink? Please take care of yourself at the moment, I can’t see anything else,” the rescue worker could be heard saying.
JEE News showed the historic Gaziantep Castle severely damaged.
Offer to help
Erdogan said 45 countries have offered to help with search and rescue efforts.
White House national security adviser Jack Sullivan said the United States was “deeply concerned” about the earthquake and was ready to provide assistance.
The US Geological Survey says the earthquake struck at a depth of 17.9 km. It reported a series of earthquakes, with a magnitude of 6.7.
This region straddles seismic fault lines.
“The combination of high magnitude and shallow depth made this earthquake extremely destructive,” said Mohammad Kashani, associate professor of structural and earthquake engineering at the University of Southampton.
