Turkey Earthquake 7.8 Magnitude - Feb. 06, 2023

[Virginia Dalisay]

[ESMERALDHA]

More than 1,300 people were killed when an earthquake struck central Turkey and north-west Syria, in one of the most powerful quakes in the region in at least a century, while a second powerful shake hours later threatened to overwhelm rescue efforts.

Thousands more were injured as the quake wiped out entire sections of major cities in a region filled with millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria.

The magnitude 7.8 quake, which hit in the early darkness of a winter morning, was followed by a second, 7.7 quake in the middle of the day on Monday, as rescuers in both countries were still attempting to search for survivors.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said 912 people were killed, 5,383 injured, and 2,818 buildings had collapsed.

In Syria, already wrecked by more than 11 years of civil war, the health ministry said more than 326 people had been killed and 1,042 injured. In the Syrian rebel-held north-west, rescuers said 147 people had died.

The toll was expected to rise as rescue workers and residents searched frantically for survivors under the rubble of crushed buildings in cities on both sides of the border.

historic castle, an ancient and imposing stone structure atop a hill used as an observation point during Roman times.

The head of the Turkish Red Crescent, the biggest humanitarian organisation in Turkey and part of the International Red Cross, said it was mobilising resources for the region and urged people to evacuate damaged homes. The head of Turkey’s disaster management agency said “all capabilities of our state were mobilised”, after the quake, warning civilians to keep communication to urgent texts only to help emergency services find survivors.

Images on Turkish television showed rescuers digging through the rubble of levelled buildings in the city of Kahramanmaraş and neighbouring Gaziantep, where entire high-rise blocks were destroyed. A fire lit up the night sky in one image from Kahramanmaraş, although its origin remained unclear.

Buildings also crumbled in the cities of Adıyaman, Malatya and Diyarbakır, where people rushed out on the street in panic.

Residents in the town of Pazarcık said they feared for those trapped under fallen buildings. Nihat Altundağ said the powerful shocks from the earthquake woke his family.

“Our house looks solid from the outside but there are cracks inside. There are destroyed buildings around me, there are houses on fire, there are buildings that are cracking. A building collapsed just 200m away from where I am now,” he said. “We are waiting for the sun to rise so that we can see the scale of the earthquake. People are all outside, all in fear.”

“People are overwhelmed. There is heavy snowfall and it’s badly affecting rescue efforts,” he said.

The Syrian health ministry reported damage across the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Tartus, where Russia is leasing a naval facility.

Even before the tragedy, buildings in Aleppo, Syria’s prewar commercial hub, often collapsed due to the dilapidated infrastructure after more than a decade of war as well as little oversight to ensure safety of new construction projects, some built illegally.

The Syrian Civil Defence, a rescue service known as the White Helmets that works to save those trapped under debris from airstrikes, said it had declared a state of emergency to rescue the many people feared trapped under collapsed buildings in areas around Idlib and across opposition-held areas in north-western Syria.

In a statement, the organisation described “a catastrophic situation with buildings collapsed or suffering major cracks, hundreds injured and stranded, dozens dead and a lack of services as well as safe shelters and assembly points in stormy and snowy weather conditions and low temperatures”.

The group also added a plea for aid from the international community “to prevent the situation from worsening” and to pressure both the Syrian government and their backers in Moscow to hold back on airstrikes in the area to prevent further tragedy.

People in Damascus, as well as in the Lebanese cities of Beirut and Tripoli, ran into the street on foot and took to their cars to get away from their buildings in case of collapses, witnesses said.

“Paintings fell off the walls in the house,” said Samer, a resident of Damascus, the Syrian capital. “I woke up terrified. Now we’re all dressed and standing at the door.”

Aid groups fear the disaster will worsen the situation for Syrians already displaced after a decade of civil war. “This is a disaster that will worsen the suffering of Syrians already struggling with a severe humanitarian crisis,” said Carsten Hansen, of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

He added: “Millions have already been forced to flee by war in the wider region and now many more will be displaced by disaster. In the midst of a winter storm and an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, it is vital that Syrians are not left to face the aftermath on their own.”

Turkey is in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones, with land stretching over the Anatolian fault line in the north of the country that has caused large and destructive tremors. İzmit and the surrounding Kocaeli region, close to Istanbul, was rocked by a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in 1999, the worst to hit Turkey in decades.

The quake killed more than 17,000 people, including at least 1,000 in Istanbul, amid widespread destruction. Experts have long warned a large quake could devastate Istanbul.

Naci Görür, an earthquake expert with Turkey’s Academy of Sciences, urged local officials to immediately check the region’s dams for cracks to avert potentially catastrophic flooding.

[Xanadu Tinkerbell]

[Mona Lisa]

Dapat ngayon pa lang ay naghahanda na ang Pilipinas, dahil kapag dumating ang THE BIG ONE ay maraming lumang building ang guguho at maraming tao ang mamamatay pag nagkataon.

Dapat ay i abandon at ibagsak na yang mga lumang building na yan.

[Mariana Erwin]

:%((

[goddessoxana27]

Glad my sibling and her colleagues were fine...

[ClubEarthMisso]

I've seen some video footage from the after math on reddit. It was horrifying to hear people shouting asking for help under the rubble in darkness and to see people powerless to help hearing their agonizing cries

[ESMERALDHA]

[Mona Lisa]

I

[ESMERALDHA]

[Xanadu Tinkerbell]

[ESMERALDHA]

[Xanadu Tinkerbell]

[ESMERALDHA]

[Ian Sebastin]

I just read the death toll is over 30,000 people. That is insane. The media in the US is not even covering it. I have to read about it online.

[Mona Lisa]

[Lorenzo Alessandro]

I just read the death toll is over 30,000 people. That is insane. The media in the US is not even covering it. I have to read about it online.

In the midst of debris, dust and toxic smoke rising from fires lit to stay warm, the smell of dead bodies is growing. The stench of death lingers in Turkey.





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[Xanadu Tinkerbell]

OMG, there are 1.5 million Filipinos in California.

[ayushiest]

After two earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.8 and 7.6, there was another earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4, keep your prayers