Powerful earthquake in Turkey and Syria claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people

AZMARIN, Syria – A massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked vast areas of Turkey and Syria early Monday morning, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing more than 1,500 people. It was believed that hundreds of people were still trapped under the rubble, and the death toll was expected to rise as rescuers searched rubble mounds in cities and towns across the area.

On both sides of the border, residents, awakened by the pre-dawn earthquake, ran outside on a cold, rainy and snowy night. Buildings turned into heaps of pancake floors as violent tremors continued to rock the region.

Rescuers and residents of many cities searched for survivors, making their way through the intricate walls of metal and concrete. A hospital collapsed in Turkey, and patients, including newborns, were evacuated from facilities in Syria.

In the Turkish city of Adana, a resident said that three buildings near his house had been demolished. “I don’t have any more strength,” one survivor screamed from under the rubble as rescuers tried to reach him, said local resident, journalism student Muhammet Fatih Yavus.

“As work continues to remove debris from many buildings in the earthquake zone, we do not know how much the number of dead and injured will increase,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. “Hopefully we will leave these disastrous days behind us in unity and solidarity as a country and a nation.”

The earthquake, which struck north of the capital of the Turkish province of Gaziantep, was felt even in Cairo. This caused the people of Damascus to run out into the street, and in Beirut, people woke up in their beds.

It hit a region that has been shaped on both sides of the border by more than a decade of civil war in Syria. On the Syrian side, the affected strip is divided between government-held territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Meanwhile, Turkey is home to millions of refugees from this conflict.

The opposition-controlled regions of Syria are home to some 4 million people displaced from other parts of the country as a result of the fighting. Many of them live in buildings already destroyed by past bombings. Hundreds of families were left under the rubble, an opposition emergency organization called the White Helmets said in a statement.

According to rescuers, overwhelmed medical facilities and hospitals were quickly filled with the wounded. According to the SAMS medical organization, others had to be emptied, including a maternity hospital.

This region sits on top of major fault lines and is often shaken by earthquakes. About 18,000 people died in a similarly strong earthquake that hit northwestern Turkey in 1999.

The US Geological Survey put the quake on Monday at 7.8. A few hours later, one of them, with a magnitude of 7.5, struck over 100 kilometers (60 miles) away. A spokesman for the Turkish Disaster Management Agency said it was a new earthquake and not an aftershock, although its effects were not immediately clear. Orkhan Tatar told reporters that hundreds of tremors are expected after two earthquakes.

Thousands of buildings are reported to have collapsed in a vast area stretching from the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Hama to Turkey’s Diyarbakır, more than 330 kilometers (200 miles) to the northeast. A hospital has collapsed in the coastal Mediterranean city of Iskenderun, but casualties are not immediately reported, its vice president Fuat Oktay said.

TV stations in Turkey were broadcasting screens divided into four or five, showing live coverage of the rescue efforts in the hardest-hit provinces. In the city of Kahramanmaras, rescuers pulled two children alive from the rubble, one could be seen lying on a stretcher on snowy ground.

Offers of help – from search and rescue teams to medical supplies and money – came from dozens of countries, as well as from the European Union and NATO.

The damage seen in photographs of affected areas tends to be associated with significant loss of life, while severe frosts and the difficulty of working in civil war-torn areas will only make rescue efforts more difficult, said Dr. Stephen Godby, natural phenomena expert. hazard at Nottingham Trent University.

In Turkey, people trying to leave earthquake-hit regions caused traffic jams, making it difficult for emergency teams trying to reach the affected areas. Authorities urged residents to stay off the roads. Mosques across the region have been reopened to provide shelter for people unable to return to their damaged homes due to temperatures hovering around freezing.

The earthquake badly damaged Gaziantep’s most famous landmark, its historic castle located on a hilltop in the city center. Parts of the fortress walls and watchtowers were razed to the ground, while others were badly damaged, as images from the city show.

In Diyarbakır, hundreds of rescuers and civilians lined up through a mountain of rubble, passing concrete shards, household items and other debris in search of trapped survivors as excavators dug through the rubble below.

An earthquake in northwestern Syria has added new challenges to the opposition-held enclave centered on Idlib province, which has been under siege for years, with frequent Russian and government airstrikes. The territory depends on the flow of aid from neighboring Turkey for everything from food to medicine.

The opposition’s Syrian civil defense called the situation there “catastrophic”.

Osama Abdelhamid, who was treated for injuries in a hospital in Idlib, said most of his neighbors had died. He said that their shared four-story building collapsed as he, his wife, and three children ran for the exit. A wooden door fell on them, acting as a shield.

“I have been reborn, thank God,” he said.

In the small Syrian rebel town of Azmarin in the mountains near the Turkish border, the bodies of several dead children wrapped in blankets were taken to a hospital.

The Siira General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums said the quake caused some damage to the crusader-built Markab, or Watchtower Castle, on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. Part of the tower and parts of some walls collapsed.

The USGS said the earthquake was located about 33 kilometers (20 miles) from Gaziantep. Its depth was 18 kilometers (11 mi).

More than 1,000 people have died in 10 provinces in Turkey, with about 7,000 injured, according to the disaster relief agency. The death toll in government-controlled areas of Syria has exceeded 370, with about 1,000 injured. More than 200 people were killed in rebel-held areas, according to the White Helmets, although the medical organization SAMS put the death toll at over 135; both said hundreds were affected.

Hussein Yayman, an MP from Turkey’s Hatay province, said several members of his family were stranded under the rubble of their destroyed homes.

“There are so many other people who are also trapped,” he told HaberTurk broadcaster by phone. “So many damaged buildings. People on the streets. It’s raining, it’s winter.”

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Frazier reported from Ankara, Turkey. Associated Press contributors Bassem Mrow and Karim Chehaieb of Beirut and Kim Tong-hyun of Seoul, South Korea contributed to this report.