A 7.8-magnitude earthquake was felt across the Middle East on Monday morning, followed by a series of aftershocks and then a 7.5-magnitude quake in the afternoon, which officials described as different from earlier ones. The earthquake was Turkey’s worst seismic event in decades, shaking the area around the city of Gaziantep, which is home to millions of Turkish citizens, displaced Syrians and refugees.
The first quake struck at 4:17 a.m. in the middle of a winter storm and struck a large swath of the country, running for hundreds of miles near its border with Syria. Turkey’s emergency service said at least 1,498 people were killed, more than 8,000 were injured and more than 2,800 buildings collapsed. Search teams rescued about 2,500 people buried under the debris.
Earthquakes in Syria have killed at least 810 people in the country’s northern region, according to the Syrian civil defense organisation, known as the White Helmets, and the government-affiliated health ministry in Damascus.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an address to the nation, “At the moment, we do not know how much the number of dead and injured will increase.”
In Syria, the earthquake rocked an area of the country that is home to millions of people displaced by the country’s civil war, many in temporary camps. It came during a brutal economic crisis and a cholera outbreak in Syria, which hit an area with limited hospitals or other infrastructure.
Overnight temperatures dropped below freezing, with snow and ice lashing some areas affected by the quake. Mr. Erdogan said, “The fact that it is winter, the weather is cold and the earthquake happened in the middle of the night makes the job difficult but everyone is working with their heart and soul.”
In Gaziantep, a Turkish city of more than two million people, the quake jolted sleeping residents and sent them running into the street while buildings around them collapsed and sirens wailed. Residents said some remained trapped under the rubble, while others took shelter in their cars from the icy winter storm as the sun rose on Monday.
“The house shook like a baby’s cradle. It was like a nightmare. I woke up the children. I told them to be quiet. We left the building,” said Bulent Cakir, a 48-year-old resident of Gaziantep. Was screaming, crying in panic.
As night turned to day on Monday, anxious residents remained in their cars or on the street, wary of returning to their homes for fear they would collapse.
“People were just running. They don’t know where, but they were just running outside,” said Yakzan Shishakli, co-founder of a Syrian relief organization who lives in Gaziantep.
“Everyone is saying, even if things calm down, can we sleep normally after what happened last night? Everyone is hurt,” he said.
The White Helmets said on Twitter that it had declared a state of emergency and that many people were trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings. The organization tweeted a video of rescue workers pulling children out of rubble in a town north of Aleppo city, with ambulances crying out in the dark streets.
Some of the worst devastation occurred in Idlib, a province in northern Syria that is home to millions of people who were forced to flee their homes elsewhere in Syria during the war.
Frantic citizens desperately tried to rescue their loved ones from under the rubble of the collapsed buildings. Area hospitals, already ill-equipped to handle the influx of displaced people, were struggling to cope, according to relief workers and residents.
“People are working with their bare hands. “There is no equipment, just trying to pull people out from under the rubble,” said Abdulkafi Alhamdo, an English teacher from Aleppo who lives in Idlib. ,
Syria shut down its main oil refinery for 48 hours after the quake caused cracks in chimneys and other buildings, according to state news agency SANA.
The earthquake comes at a critical moment for Turkey as it prepares for its most important election in a generation this spring, with Mr Erdogan facing a difficult re-election campaign. Government response to disasters, including recent wildfires, has become a topic of public debate in recent years.
Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the country has declared its highest state of emergency which “includes a call for international help.”
President Biden said he has instructed his team to provide “any and all necessary assistance” from the US
Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national adviser, said the president had directed the US Agency for International Development and other government agencies to “assess US response options to help those most affected”.
French President Emmanuel Macron said that France is ready to provide emergency assistance to people in the earthquake zone. The offer comes as other countries, including Germany, Italy and Poland, have also said they are willing or ready to send help.
The US Geological Survey said the quake occurred in a seismically active region: Anatolia, the junction between the Arabia and Africa plates. The agency said three earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater have occurred within 250 kilometers, or about 155 miles, of Monday’s quake since 1970.
A 7.6-magnitude earthquake rocked western Turkey near Istanbul in 1999, killing thousands and devastating Turkey’s largest city in a national shock that is etched in the memory of millions.