UpdateTurkey and Syria were hit by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the night from Sunday to Monday. The American seismological institute USGS announced this on Monday. The number of fatalities is rising rapidly. In Turkey, news agency ‘Anadolu’ reports at least 15 deaths, but local officials call higher numbers. In Syria, the state news agency reports at least 42 dead.
The earthquake occurred at 4:17 a.m. local time (2:17 a.m. Belgian time) at a depth of about 18 kilometers. The epicenter was 26 kilometers northwest of the city of Gaziantep, not far from the border with Syria. USGS registered another aftershock with a magnitude of 6.7 fifteen minutes later.
Residents of several cities in southeastern Turkey, such as Malatya, Diyarbakir and Sanliurfa, share images of destroyed buildings with the hashtag ‘#DEPREMOLDU’ (#ERWASEENEARTHQUARE). The governor of Malatya said at least 23 people were killed, 420 people were injured and at least 140 buildings collapsed in the city.
Victims trapped under the rubble use their phones to ask for help via social media.
The exact magnitude of the disaster is not yet clear. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed the Turkish people via Twitter early Monday morning. He wished the affected people strength and said that the disaster authority AFAD is coordinating the emergency services and that rescue workers are on their way to the area. “We hope that together we will overcome this disaster as quickly as possible and with as little damage as possible, we will continue to work.”
According to the Syrian state news agency, the northwest of that country has also been badly affected. At least 42 people have been killed and 200 injured in the regions of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia. Buildings in the border area collapsed and people were buried under the rubble.
Residents of Cyprus, Israel and Lebanon, among others, also report on social media that they have felt the earthquake.
BNO News
@BNONews
Tectonic plates
Several tectonic plates border each other under the territory of Turkey. When they collide, it causes earthquakes.
In November 1999, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 killed about 900 people in Düzce. In September of the same year, a particularly strong earthquake of magnitude 7.4 claimed the lives of more than 17,000 people in the region around the industrial city of Izmit, some 130 kilometers to the west. An earthquake in Izmir in October 2020 killed more than a hundred people.
In November of last year, the country was also hit by an earthquake, then with a magnitude of 5.9. At the time, at least 80 people were injured and 8,000 buildings were checked for damage. The epicenter of the quake was in the province of Düzce on the Black Sea, about 200 kilometers from the capital Ankara
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