Powerful quake in Turkey and Syria; Turkey’s biggest earthquake in more than 80 years has killed. More than 1,000 people in the south of the country and across the border in Syria.
The earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, caused widespread devastation. Destroying thousands of buildings and putting people on the streets. Turkish state media confirm 912 people were kill in the quake. Which struck just after 4 a.m. local time, but President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan .Said thousands more were injure in 10 Turkish provinces.
The first Turkish survey showed that almost 3,000 buildings. Were destroy in the affect areas in Kahramanmaraş province in southern Turkey. Near the Syrian border, at least 500 kilometers away. The Turkish government has sent rescue teams with military. Cargo planes to the affected areas – some 9,000 people are working on the effort.
In Syria, more than 237 people died. Hundreds were wound in areas controll by the regime. Mainly in the provinces of Hama, Aleppo, Tartus and Latakia, the country’s deputy health minister said. More than 120 civilians have been kill in northwest Syria. The last part of the country still under opposition control, according to the Syrian Civil Defense.
Parts of Syria have been worst hit by a brutal 12-year war that has shatter the country. Collapsed the economy, displaced civilians and impoverished millions across the country. Last year, the UN warned that more than 15 million people were in need of humanitarian aid. The highest number since the beginning of the conflict.
The earthquake caused significant damage to the infrastructure. Which already been hit by airstrikes for years. Syrian television showed footage of rescue teams searching for survivors. Health officials urged the public to help rescue their neighbors and take them to hospital.
“I thought the room was going to fall on our heads. The house was shaking so much,” said Munsef Hamoud, an elderly man who lives on the outskirts of Aleppo. “Many houses collapsed in our area and we heard people screaming under the rubble.
Powerful quake in Turkey and Syria; The quake was felt across the region, in Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Israel and Egypt. In Lebanon, people ran into the streets to escape shaking buildings during several strong aftershocks.
According to eyewitnesses, residents of several Turkish provinces took to the streets in near-freezing temperatures, rain and snow. Television footage shows rescuers digging through the rubble in the town of Pazarcık, not far from the epicenter. In the southeastern part of the city of Gaziantep. Most of the 17th-century fortress above the center was destroy.
Rescuers pulled a child from the rubble of a collapsed block of flats in Adana province. While in the city of Diyarbakir, earth-moving machines cleared crushed steel and concrete as rescuers called for survivors.
At least 76 aftershocks hit the region, the strongest one measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale, disaster management officials said. Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu stated that the country is ready to accept international aid.
In northwestern Syria’s Idlib province, “hundreds of families” are still trap under the rubble, the Syrian Civil Defense said. According to UN data, about 4.6 million people live in the area controlled by the Islamist movement. Which is one of the last remaining enclaves of the Syrian opposition. Most of whom are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Many of these people have moved to other areas of the country due to the Syrian civil war. As such, some live in informal settlements on the fringes of cities, in open fields. Abandoned buildings, emptied or flattened by airstrikes. Much of the region’s health infrastructure was destroy during the war after hospitals were regularly target.
A video released by the Syrian American Medical Association. Which supports 36 medical facilities in the northwest, shows a chaotic emergency room at an Aleppo hospital.
“Our hospitals are overflowing with patients filling the hallways,” the group said in a statement. Several of the group’s hospitals suffer “severe damage,” including in Idlib, where newborns were transfer to nearby facilities that were still operational.
Turkey lies on fault lines, and small earthquakes are almost a daily occurrence. Monday’s earthquake was the largest in the country since 1939. An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale shook Istanbul and surrounding provinces in 1999, killing more than 17,000 people.
Seismologists blame non-compliance with building regulations for the high death toll in the Turkish disaster. Last year, the Minister for Urban Affairs and Environment said the country’s housing stock included 6.8 million houses that were “at risk” from an earthquake.
