No fewer than 3,000 people have been reported dead following a huge earthquake that occurred in Turkey and northwest Syria, with freezing winter weather adding to the plight of the thousands left injured or homeless and hampering efforts to find survivors.
According to reports, the magnitude 7.8 quake brought down whole apartment blocks in Turkish cities and piled more devastation on millions of Syrians displaced by years of war.
Local reports have it that it struck before sunrise in harsh weather and was followed in the early afternoon by another large quake.
In a chat with newsmen in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey, a woman speaking next to the wreckage of the seven-storey block where she lived said: “We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home. Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I’m waiting for them.”
Records have it that the earthquake was the biggest recorded worldwide by the U.S. Geological Survey since a tremor in the remote South Atlantic in August 2021.
It was also gathered that the earthquake’s casualties already mark the highest death toll from an earthquake in Turkey since 1999, when a tremor of similar magnitude devastated the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000.
As of the time of filing this report, in Turkey, the death toll stood at 1,762, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said, and 12,068 people were recorded as injured. At least 1,293 people were killed in Syria, according to figures from the Damascus government and rescue workers in the northwestern region controlled by insurgents.
In a swift reaction, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, called the quake a historic disaster and the worst earthquake to hit the country since 1939, but said authorities were doing all they could.
He said “Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night makes things more difficult”.
The second quake was big enough to bring down more buildings and, like the first, was felt across the region, endangering rescuers struggling to pull casualties from the rubble, reports said.
As of the time of filing this report, Syria’s health ministry said 593 people had been killed and more than 1,326 injured. In the Syrian rebel-held northwest emergency workers said more than 700 people had died.
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