Turkey, the war-torn country, has rescuers following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that killed more than 4,000 people, thousands of structures were fallen across a large region, and Syria searched through the icy night into Tuesday in an effort to find more survivors.
Authorities feared the death toll from Monday’s early-morning earthquake and its aftershocks would increase as rescuers searched among the tangles of metal and concrete scattered over the area plagued by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis for survivors.
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First responders battled rain and snow as survivors screamed for assistance from beneath mounds of wreckage. The area was shaken by seismic activity, which included another shock that was almost as strong as the initial quake.
In Turkey and Syria, tens of thousands of people who were made homeless had to spend the night outside in the cold. People sought sanctuary in malls, stadiums, mosques, and community centres in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, the province capital located about 33 kilometres (20 miles) from the epicentre. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, proclaimed seven days of national mourning.
President of the United States Joe Biden contacted Erdogan to offer his condolences and support to the NATO ally. The White House announced that it would send search and rescue personnel to assist Turkey.
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Residents of Damascus and Beirut rushed into the streets in response to the earthquake, which was felt as far away as Cairo and was centered in the province of Kahramanmaras in southeast Turkey.
According to Orhan Tatar, a representative of Turkey’s emergency management organization, more than 7,800 persons were saved across 10 provinces. Major fault lines run through the area, which frequently experiences earthquakes. Similarly strong earthquakes that struck northwest Turkey in 1999 claimed over 18,000 lives.
The depth of Monday’s earthquake, as determined by the U.S. Geological Survey, was 18 kilometres (11 miles). A few hours later, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) away, probably as a result of the previous one.
In a large area that stretched from the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Hama to Diyarbakir, Turkey, more than 330 kilometres (200 miles) to the northeast, thousands of structures were believed to have collapsed.
