A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked wide swaths of Turkey and neighbouring Syria on Monday, killing more than 3,400 people and injuring thousands more as it toppled thousands of buildings and trapped residents under mounds of rubble.
Authorities feared the death toll would keep climbing as rescuers searched through tangles of metal and concrete for survivors in a region beset by Syria’s 12-year civil war and a refugee crisis.
Residents jolted out of sleep by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside in the rain and snow to escape falling debris, while those trapped cried for help. Throughout the day, major aftershocks rattled the region, including a jolt nearly as strong as the initial quake. After night fell, workers were still sawing away slabs and pulling out bodies as desperate families waited for news on trapped loved ones.
“My grandson is 1 1/2 years old. Please help them, please. We can’t hear them or get any news from them since morning. Please, they were on the 12th floor,” Imran Bahur wept by her destroyed apartment building in the Turkish city of Adana. Her daughter and family were still not found.
Tens of thousands who were left homeless in Turkey and Syria faced a night in the cold. In Turkey’s Gaziantep, a provincial capital about 33 kilometers (20 miles) from the epicenter, people took refuge in shopping malls, stadiums and community centers. Mosques around the region were opened to provide shelter.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared seven days of national mourning.
The quake, centered on Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street, which was felt as far away as Cairo.
The quake piled more misery on a region that has suffered tremendously over the past decade. On the Syrian side, the area is divided between government-held territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Turkey, meanwhile, is home to millions of refugees from the civil war.
In the rebel-held enclave, hundreds of families remained trapped in rubble, the opposition emergency organization, called the White Helmets said in a statement. The area is packed with some 4 million people displaced from other parts of the country by the war. Many of them live in buildings that are already wrecked from past bombardments.
Rescue workers said strained health facilities quickly filled with injured people. According to the SAMS medical organisation, others, including a maternity hospital, had to be emptied.
More than 7,800 people were rescued across 10 provinces, according to Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkey’s disaster management authority.
The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.
The U.S. Geological Survey measured Monday’s quake at 7.8, with a depth of 18 kilometers (11 miles). Hours later, a 7.5 magnitude temblor struck over 100 kilometers (60 miles) away.
The second jolt in the afternoon caused a multistory apartment building to topple face-forward onto the street in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa. The structure disintegrated into rubble and raised a cloud of dust as bystanders screamed, according to video of the scene.
Thousands of buildings were reported collapsed in a wide area extending from Syria’s cities of Aleppo and Hama to Turkey’s Diyarbakir, more than 330 kilometers (200 miles) to the northeast.
In Turkey alone, authorities said, more than 5,600 buildings were destroyed. Hospitals were damaged, and one collapsed in the Turkish city of Iskenderun.
Bitterly cold temperatures could reduce rescuers’ time frame to save trapped survivors, said Dr. Steven Godby, an expert in natural hazards at Nottingham Trent University. He noted the difficulty of working in areas beset by civil war would further complicate rescue efforts.
Offers of help — from search-and-rescue teams to medical supplies and money — poured in from dozens of countries, including the European Union and NATO. The vast majority were for Turkey, with Russian and even an Israeli promise of help to the Syrian government. Still, it was not clear if any would go to the devastated rebel-held pocket in the northwest.
The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense described the situation in the enclave as “disastrous.”
In Turkey alone, more than 5,600 buildings were destroyed, authorities said. Hospitals were damaged, and one collapsed in the Turkish city of Iskenderun.
Bitterly cold temperatures could reduce rescuers’ time frame to save trapped survivors, said Dr. Steven Godby, an expert in natural hazards at Nottingham Trent University. He noted the difficulty of working in areas beset by civil war would further complicate rescue efforts.
Offers of help — from search-and-rescue teams to medical supplies and money — poured in from dozens of countries, including the European Union and NATO. The vast majority were for Turkey, with Russian and even an Israeli promise of help to the Syrian government. Still, it was unclear if any would go to the devastated rebel-held pocket in the northwest.
The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense described the situation in the enclave as “disastrous.”
