Themacforums – Major Earthquake in Turkey, Syria Kills at Least 500 People. More than 500 people were killed and hundreds were injured when a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 rocked central Turkey and northwest Syria. Buildings collapsed throughout the area, sparking searches for survivors among the rubble.
At a depth of approximately 17.9 kilometers, the earthquake occurred on Monday at 4:17 a.m. local time (01:17 GMT), while people were asleep (11 miles). Cyprus and Lebanon were also affected.
Fuat Oktay, vice president of Turkey, reported 284 fatalities and 2,323 injuries as officials dispatched rescue crews and supply planes to the area and declared a “level 4 alarm” that requires assistance from other countries.
The famous Gaziantep Castle suffered significant damage, as seen in footage on CNN Turk.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, tweeted that “search and rescue personnel were immediately despatched” to the earthquake-affected regions. In order to learn more about the crisis and the rescue efforts, he also spoke on the phone with the eight affected provinces’ governors, according to a statement from his office.
Suleyman Soylu, the interior minister of Turkey, reported at least six aftershocks and warned residents against going into damaged structures owing to the dangers.
He declared, “Our top priority is getting people out from under the collapsed buildings and getting them to the hospitals.
In some locations in southeast Turkey, videos posted on social media showed structures that had been reduced to mounds of debris.
Images of people gathered around demolished buildings in the town of Kahramanmaras, searching for survivors, were broadcast by TRT and Haberturk. Other pictures showed individuals hiding out in their vehicles alongside snow-covered roadways.
A government health official in Syria, which has been devastated by more than 11 years of civil conflict, reported that more than 237 people had died and 600 had been injured, the most in the provinces of Hama, Aleppo, and Latakia where many structures collapsed.
The White Helmets, a Syrian civil defense rescue group, called the situation in the rebel-held area “disastrous” and said that entire buildings had collapsed and people were trapped beneath the wreckage. They asked people to leave buildings and congregate outside.
Salqin is a city that lies around 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Turkish border. “The situation is quite awful, tens of buildings have collapsed there,” a member of the White Helmets stated in a video footage posted on Twitter. The rescuer in the video footage, which showed a street covered in debris, claimed that homes were “completely demolished.”
Buildings trembled in the Syrian capital of Damascus, as many terrified individuals ran into the streets.
According to his office, President Bashar al-Assad called an urgent cabinet meeting to assess the damage and deliberate the next course of action.
Rescue personnel was seen looking for survivors in the pouring rain and sleet on state television. Health officials pleaded with the public to assist in transporting the hurt to hospitals.
Residents in Lebanon were startled out of their beds by the earthquake, which shook the buildings for roughly 40 seconds. Many Beirut residents left their homes and wandered the streets or got in their cars to leave the structures.
According to King Abdullah University’s Martin Mai, a geophysics professor, it was one of the biggest earthquakes to strike the region in hundreds of years.
Large-scale destruction and local devastation must be anticipated, he said.
Rescue personnel was seen looking for survivors in the pouring rain and sleet on state television. Health officials pleaded with the public to assist in transporting the hurt to hospitals.
Residents in Lebanon were startled out of their beds by the earthquake, which shook the buildings for roughly 40 seconds. Many Beirut residents left their homes and wandered the streets or got in their cars to leave the structures.
According to King Abdullah University’s Martin Mai, a geophysics professor, it was one of the biggest earthquakes to strike the region in hundreds of years.
Large-scale destruction and local devastation must be anticipated, he said.
The public is present. It is quite cold and people are afraid.
Turkey is located in one of the seismically active regions of the world; in 1999, massive earthquakes that struck the nation’s northwest claimed the lives of approximately 18,000 people.
