Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Feb 6: At least 250 people were killed by a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria early Monday morning. Several buildings are reported to have collapsed while people were still asleep. Hundreds are injured and the death toll is expected to rise.
A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on Monday, killing more than 100 people, levelling buildings while many were still asleep, and sending tremors that were felt as far away as the island of Cyprus and Egypthttps://t.co/mS7MIDzGoH pic.twitter.com/TJAslBZ78Q
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 6, 2023
Initially, local officials in Turkey put the death count at 90, although it is rising significantly because most people were still at home asleep during the earthquake. State media said that at least 53 people also died in government-controlled parts of northern Syria.
Turkish television images and social media showed local people in shock standing in the snow in their pyjamas, watching rescuers excavate through the remains of smashed homes in the city of Kahramanmaras and the neighbouring Gaziantep.
Notably, the earthquake struck at 04:17 am local time (0117 GMT) at a depth of about 17.9 kilometres (11 miles), a US agency said, with a 6.7-magnitude aftershock striking 15 minutes later.
Reportedly, the earthquake was one of the most powerful to hit the region in at least a century. Turkey’s AFAD emergencies service centre put the first quake’s magnitude at 7.4. The quake sent shockwaves as far away as the island of Cyprus and Egypt.
“I convey my best wishes to all our citizens who were affected by the earthquake,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted.
NTV television said buildings also crumbled in the cities of Adiyaman, Malatya and Diyarbakir. CNN Turk television said the quake was also felt across parts of central Turkey and the capital Ankara. Syrian state television reported that a building near Latakia, on the west coast of Syria, had collapsed.
https://twitter.com/ismailrojbayani/status/1622437890247598083
Pro-government media said several buildings had partially collapsed in Hama, central Syria, with civil defence and fire fighters trying to drag survivors out of the ruins.
Raed Ahmed, who heads Syria’s National Earthquake Centre, told pro-government radio that this was ‘historically, the biggest earthquake recorded in the history of the centre’.
Notably, Turkey is in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.
The Turkish region of Duzce had once suffered a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in 1999. That quake killed more than 17,000 people, including about 1,000 in Istanbul.
A magnitude-6.8 quake hit Elazig in January 2020, killing more than 40 people following which in October same year, a magnitude-7.0 quake hit Turkey’s Aegean coast, killing 114 people and wounding more than 1,000.
Notably, experts have long warned a large quake could despoil Istanbul, which has allowed widespread building without safety measures.
