Ashish Ranjan
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria early on Monday morning claimed the lives of hundreds of people who were asleep, destroyed many structures, and caused vibrations to be felt as far away as Egypt and the island of Cyprus.
In a region where millions of people have fled the Syrian civil war and other crises, one of the worst to hit Turkey in at least a century completely destroyed big portions of major cities.
According to Raed Ahmed, the director of Syria’s National Earthquake Center, this was “historically the greatest earthquake recorded in the history of the centre.”
According to the health ministry and a nearby hospital, at least 245 people died in Syria’s government-controlled regions as well as the northern regions held by pro-Turkish forces.
Anguished by the loss of lives and damage of property due to the Earthquake in Turkey. Condolences to the bereaved families. May the injured recover soon. India stands in solidarity with the people of Turkey and is ready to offer all possible assistance to cope with this tragedy. https://t.co/vYYJWiEjDQ
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 6, 2023
Turkey has seen at least 284 fatalities, according to vice president Fuat Oktay, who also noted that more than 2,300 people have been injured and that search and rescue operations are still ongoing in numerous major cities.A winter snowfall that coated main roadways in ice and snow and made rescue efforts difficult proved hindering.
Television footage showed horrified Turks watching rescuers sift through the wreckage of destroyed homes while standing in the snow in their pyjamas.
According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake occurred in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which is home to roughly two million people, at 04:17 local time (0117 GMT) and a depth of approximately 17.9 kilometres (11 miles).
The first earthquake, according to Turkey’s AFAD emergency service centre, had a magnitude of 7.4 and was followed by more than 40 aftershocks.Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, expressed his sympathies and called for national unity. Erdogan will be under intense pressure to oversee an efficient response to the disaster before a hotly contested election on May 14.
The Turkish president tweeted, “We hope that we will get through this calamity together as soon as possible and with the least harm.”Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser for the US, stated that Washington was “profoundly concerned.”We are prepared to offer whatever support that is required, Sullivan said.
Near Syria, a nation racked by more than a decade of turmoil that has killed hundreds of thousands and uprooted millions, the earthquake struck a restive, primarily Kurdish region of Turkey.
Rescuers could be seen sifting through the wreckage of demolished buildings in the cities of Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, which were both completely destroyed.
In one of the images from Kahramanmaras, a fire lighted up the night sky, but its source was unknown.AFP reporters reported terrified residents running out onto the streets in the cities of Adiyaman, Malatya, and Diyarbakir, where buildings also collapsed.Omer Faruk Coskun, the governor of Kahramanmaras, stated that due to the extensive building damage, it was too soon to estimate the number of fatalities
Because so many structures have been demolished, Coskun stated that it was currently impossible to provide the number of people who have died and been injured. “The harm is severe.”In the region of Maltaya, a historic 13th-century mosque partially fell together with a 14-story structure housing 28 apartments.
Rescuers in other places laboured in agony to locate survivors buried under the rubble.A rescuer was heard saying in front of a destroyed building in the city of Diyarbakir, “We hear voices here — and over there, too.””Under the rubble there could be 200 individuals.”
Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, and Tartus, where Russia is renting a naval facility, were among the areas where damage was reported by the Syrian health ministry.Fearful locals reportedly fled their houses when the ground shook, according to AFP correspondents in northern Syria.
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Buildings in Aleppo, Syria’s pre-war commercial centre, frequently fell down before the disaster because of the city’s crumbling infrastructure from more than a decade of conflict and the lack of monitoring for new construction projects, some of which were built illegally.
Naci Gorur, an expert on earthquakes with the Turkish Academy of Sciences, pleaded with local officials to check the area’s dams for fractures right once to prevent possibly disastrous flooding.Turkey is located in one of the seismically active regions of the planet.
The biggest earthquake to strike Turkey in decades struck the Turkish area of Duzce in 1999, measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale.Over 17,000 individuals were killed in that earthquake, including about 1,000 in Istanbul.
Experts have long cautioned that Istanbul, which has permitted extensive building without safety safeguards, may be completely destroyed by a huge earthquake.
In January 2020, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck Elazig, killing around 40 people.
Additionally, a magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck Turkey’s Aegean coast in October of that same year left more than 1,000 people injured.
