Monitoring Desk
ANKARA: The most powerful earthquake struck Turkey and Syria early on Monday, killing over 2,300 people while they were sleeping, levelling buildings, and causing the quake tremors felt as far away as Greenland.
The 7.8-magnitude night-time earthquake, followed hours later by a slightly smaller one, destroyed entire sections of major cities of Turkey in a region filled with several million people who have fled the Syrian civil war and other conflicts.
The chief of Syria’s National Earthquake Centre, Raed Ahmed, declared it “the biggest earthquake recorded in the history of the center.”
At least 800 people were killed in rebel and government-controlled areas of Syria, state media and hospital sources said.
Another 1,200 people were killed in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
The initial tremor was followed by more than 50 aftershocks, including a 7.5-magnitude earthquake that jolted the region in the middle of rescue and search work on Monday afternoon.
Panicked survivors in Turkey rushed out into the streets in their pajamas, watching rescue teams dig through the rubbles of damaged homes with their hands.
The rescue was being disturbed by a winter blizzard covering major ice and snow roads. Officials said the earthquake made three major airports in the area inoperable, further complicating vital aid deliveries.
Erdogan hopes to get through the quake destruction
Erdogan conveyed his sympathies and called for national unity, saying, “We hope that together we will get through this disaster as soon as possible and with the minimum damage.”
The first earthquake struck at 04:17 am (0117 GMT) at a depth of around 11 miles (17.9 kilometers) near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which is home to nearly two million people, reported the US Geological Survey.
The Danish geological institute reported that the earthquake tremors were felt in the far Greenland region.
A spokesman for the civil defence of Syria said teams were scrambling to search and rescue trapped people.
Washington, the European Union, Pakistan, and Russia immediately sent condolences and offers of help.
Images on Turkish television showed rescue teams digging through rubble across city centers and residential neighbourhoods of almost all the major cities running along the border with Syria.
Some of the heaviest devastations occurred near the earthquake’s epicenter between Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras, where entire city blocks lay in wreckage under the gathering snow.
In other cities of Turkey, social media posts showed a 2,200-year-old hilltop castle constructed by Roman armies in Gaziantep lying in wreckage, its walls partially turned to rubble.
Turkey is said to be one of the most active earthquake zones around the world.
In 1999, the Turkish region of Duzce suffered a 7.4-magnitude earthquake when over 17,000 people died –including around 1,000 in Istanbul.
Experts have long warned a large earthquake could devastate Istanbul, a megalopolis of around 16 million people filled with rickety homes.
The last 7.8-magnitude earthquake shook Turkey in 1939 when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province.
