7.8 magnitude earthquake shakes Turkey and Syria, more than 120 dead

Europe 1 with AFP 06:36, February 06, 2023

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit southern Turkey and neighboring Syria on Monday, killing more than 120 people in both countries and causing major damage according to initial reports.

At least 76 people have been killed in Turkey in seven different provinces, according to the government's disaster management agency (Afad), and at least 50 others have lost their lives in Syria, according to Syrian state media.

More than 600 people were injured in the two countries, the same sources said.

Turkey's biggest earthquake since 1999

According to the American seismological institute USGS, the earthquake took place at 04:17 local time (01:17 GMT), at a depth of approximately 17.9 kilometers.

The epicenter is located in the district of Pazarcik, in the province of Kahramanmaras (southeast), about 60 km as the crow flies from the Syrian border.

This earthquake is the largest in Turkey since the earthquake of August 17, 1999, which caused the death of 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul.

28 people were killed in the province of Adiyaman, announced Monday its governor, reporting a hundred buildings collapsed.

At least 23 people have been killed and 420 others injured in Malatya province, its governor told public broadcaster TRT.

The governor of Sanliurfa has reported 18 dead and 30 injured in his province.

At least six others were killed in Diyarbakir province, its governor said.

"We hear voices here and there. We think maybe 200 people are under the rubble," said a rescuer dispatched to a destroyed building in Diyarbakir, according to images broadcast on the NTV channel.

According to Afad, the earthquake that occurred overnight had a magnitude of 7.4 and a depth of 7 km.

The tremors, felt across the southeast of the country, were also felt in Lebanon and Cyprus, according to AFP correspondents.

Many buildings destroyed

Buildings have been destroyed in many cities in the south-east of the country, according to images broadcast by the Turkish media, raising fears of a much heavier toll.

An AFP correspondent in Diyarbakir, a large city in the south-east of the country, saw a collapsed building, with rescuers hard at work trying to extricate people from the rubble.

On Twitter, Turkish Internet users shared the identity and location of people trapped under the rubble in several cities in the south-east of the country.

Adana city mayor Zeydan Karalar said two 17-storey and 14-storey buildings were destroyed, according to TRT.

Call for international help

"All our teams are on alert. We have issued a level four alarm. This is a call, including for international help," Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu told the Haberturk channel.

“Our teams are on high alert to rescue survivors,” the Syrian White Helmets, rescuers engaged in rebel areas in Syria, also said on Twitter.

50 aftershocks were recorded in Turkey, according to Afad.

The governor of Gaziantep province called on residents to gather outside despite the cold, while the head of Diyanet, the Turkish public body responsible for supervising worship, called on Turks in need to find refuge in mosques.

Turkish rescuers and civil defense as well as Syrian firefighters were at work on Monday morning to try to extract possible victims from the rubble, according to local media.

Turkey is located on one of the most active seismic zones in the world.

At the end of November, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, injuring around 50 people and causing limited damage, according to the Turkish emergency services.

In January 2020, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck the provinces of Elazig and Malatya (East), killing more than 40 people.

In October of the same year, a magnitude 7 earthquake in the Aegean Sea killed 114 people and injured more than 1,000 in Turkey.