Direct scenes of the moment it occurred ... 21 people were killed and more than a thousand injured in the Turkish earthquake

The death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck eastern Turkey in the state of Alazig on Friday rose to at least 21 dead and more than a thousand injured, while rescue teams continued searching for survivors in the rubble on Saturday.

A local channel in the Turkish state of Chanli Urfa broadcast live scenes of the earthquake yesterday, as participants in one of its direct programs experienced moments of vibration.

While activists posted several videos of the moment when the earthquake occurred on social media platforms, we review some of them in the following video.

Search and rescue operations
For its part, the Civil Defense Agency said earlier that the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale, while the Turkish Seismological Center said that the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.5.

The interior, environment and health ministers, who were at the site, reported that the victims had fallen in the neighboring provinces of Alazig and Malatya (southwest).

The emergency management confirmed that at least 21 people were killed, while 1,015 others were injured.

Rescuers continued searching for survivors who were stuck under the rubble of a five-storey building that collapsed in a village located about thirty kilometers from Alazig, and one person was rescued from the rubble.

Residents of several regions in eastern Turkey near the border with Iraq and Syria felt the tremor, according to the Turkish network "NTV", adding that neighboring cities have sent their rescue teams to the earthquake zone.

It is noteworthy that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan directed state institutions to provide immediate assistance to those affected by the earthquake, and stressed in a series of tweets that state institutions take all necessary measures to overcome the consequences of the Alazig earthquake with minimal losses and ensure the safety of citizens.