a major earthquake strikes Turkey and Syria; Hundreds dead, many trapped

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An earthquake hits central Turkey and northwestern Syria, demolishing hundreds of buildings across the region

Diyarbakir/Ankara, Turkey (Reuters) – A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Turkey and northwest Syria on Monday, killing more than 500 people and injuring hundreds as buildings collapsed across the region, prompting searches for survivors under the rubble.

The quake, which struck in the early dark of a winter’s day, was felt by residents of Cyprus and Lebanon.

said a woman with a broken arm and cuts on her face as she spoke in an ambulance near the wreckage of the seven-story building where she used to live in Diyarbakir.

“I have never felt anything like this in the 40 years that I have lived,” said Erdem, a resident of the Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the epicenter of the earthquake, who refused to reveal his surname.

“We were shaken at least three times very hard.”

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said that 284 people were killed and 2,323 injured, while the authorities rushed rescue teams and aircraft supplies to the affected area, while announcing a “level four alert” calling for international assistance.

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In Syria, already ravaged by more than 11 years of civil war, a government health official said more than 237 people have been killed and some 600 wounded, mostly in the provinces of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia, where many buildings have collapsed.

And in rebel-held northwest Syria, the rescue service said dozens were killed.

Turkish state broadcaster RTR showed rescue workers in Osmaniye province using a blanket to carry an injured man from a collapsed four-storey building and place him in an ambulance. She added that he was the fifth to be pulled from the rubble.

Footage broadcast by CNNTurk showed that the historic Gaziantep Citadel was severely destroyed.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office said in a statement that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by telephone with governors of eight affected provinces to gather information on the situation and rescue efforts.

“very tragic”

Footage from the Syrian border town of Azaz – an area controlled by opposition forces – showed a rescue worker carrying a small child from a destroyed building.

“The situation is very tragic, dozens of buildings collapsed in the city of Salqin,” a member of the White Helmets rescue organization said in a video on Twitter, referring to another town about five kilometers from the Turkish border. .

The rescuer said in the clip that appeared in the clip, which shows a street full of rubble, that the houses were “completely destroyed.”

President Bashar al-Assad’s office said an emergency cabinet meeting was to review the damage and discuss next steps.

Syrian state television showed footage of rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and frost. Health officials urged the public to help transport the injured to emergency rooms.

[1/5] Rescue workers search for survivors under the rubble of a building destroyed by an earthquake, in the rebel-held city of Azaz, Syria, February 6, 2023. REUTERS/Mahmoud Hasano

“The wounded are still arriving in batches,” Ziyad Haj Taha, director of health in Aleppo, told Reuters by phone.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo published pictures of blocks of stone that fell on the mezzanine.

In a nearby rural area, rescuers carried a sobbing, bloodied child from a collapsed building, while in the town of Azaz, a crane cut slabs of concrete as rescuers removed a body wrapped in a sheet. Read more

Many buildings in the area had already suffered combat damage during the nearly 12-year civil war.

Eyewitnesses said that people in Damascus and in the Lebanese cities of Beirut and Tripoli took to the streets and got out of their cars to get away from their buildings in case they collapsed.

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White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Twitter that the United States was “extremely concerned” about the earthquake in Turkey and Syria and was watching events closely.

“I have been in contact with Turkish officials to advise us that we stand ready to provide any and all assistance required,” he said.

The US Geological Survey said the 7.8-magnitude quake occurred at a depth of 17.9 km. It reported a series of earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.7.

The region straddles seismic fault lines.

This is the deadliest earthquake in Turkey since 1999, when a similarly strong quake struck Izmit and the densely populated eastern Sea of ​​Marmara near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000 people.

The quake lasted about a minute and shattered windows, according to a Reuters witness in Diyarbakir, 350 km (218 miles) to the east, where a security official said at least 17 buildings collapsed.

Authorities said 16 buildings collapsed in Sanliurfa and 34 in Osmaniye.

TRT and Haberturk broadcasters showed footage of people picking out the wreckage of the building, moving stretchers and searching for survivors in the city of Kahramanmaras as it was still dark.

“Our primary task is to carry out search and rescue work and to do so, all our teams are on alert,” Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters.

An earthquake was also felt in the Turkish capital, Ankara, 460 km northwest of the epicenter, and in Cyprus, where no damage was reported by the police.

“The earthquake hit an area that we feared would happen. There is massive damage on a large scale,” Kerim Kinik, head of the Turkish Red Crescent relief agency, told Khabir Türk, making an appeal for blood donations.

Turkey is among the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. More than 17,000 people were killed in 1999 when a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck the city of Izmit, southeast of Istanbul. In 2011, an earthquake in the eastern city of Van killed more than 500 people.

Additional reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru, Maya Jubaili in Beirut, Kinda Makiya in Damascus, Jonathan Spicer and Darren Butler in Istanbul, and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington. Writing by Jonathan Spicer, Robert Purcell; Editing by Tom Hogg and Clarence Fernandez

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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