Devastating quake kills over 3,600 in Turkiye, Syria

DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: The most powerful earthquake to strike Turkiye and Syria in nearly a century killed over 3,600 people on Monday and was felt as far away as Greenland, sparking frantic rescue action.

The 7.8-magnitude early morning quake, followed by dozens of aftershocks, wiped out entire sections of major Turkish cities in a region filled with millions who have fled Syria´s civil war and other conflicts.

Rescuers used heavy equipment and their bare hands to peel back rubble in search of survivors, who they could in some cases hear begging for help under the debris. “Since I live in an earthquake zone, I am used to being shaken,” said Melisa Salman, a reporter in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras.

“But that was the first time we have ever experienced anything like that,” the 23-year-old told AFP. “We thought it was the apocalypse.” The head of Syria´s National Earthquake Centre, Raed Ahmed, called it “the biggest earthquake recorded in the history of the centre”.

In Turkiye, the death toll stood at 1,762, officials said. At least 1,293 people were killed in Syria, according to figures from the Damascus government and rescue workers in the northwestern region controlled by insurgents.

President Tayyip Erdogan called it a historic disaster and the worst earthquake to hit Turkey since 1939, but said authorities were doing all they could.

“Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night makes things more difficult,” he said.

The initial quake was followed by dozens of aftershocks, including a 7.5-magnitude tremor that jolted the region in the middle of search and rescue work on Monday afternoon. Shocked survivors in Turkiye rushed out into the snow-covered streets in their pyjamas, watching rescuers dig through the debris of damaged homes with their hands.

The second quake was big enough to bring down more buildings and, like the first, was felt across the region, endangering rescuers struggling to pull casualties from the rubble. Temperatures in some areas were expected to fall to near freezing overnight, worsening conditions for people trapped under rubble or left homeless. Rain was falling on Monday after snowstorms swept the country at the weekend.

“Seven members of my family are under the debris,” Muhittin Orakci, a stunned survivor in Turkiye´s mostly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, told AFP. “My sister and her three children are there. And also her husband, her father-in-law and her mother-in-law.”

The rescue was being hampered by a winter blizzard that covered major roads in ice and snow. Officials said the quake made three major airports in the area inoperable, further complicating deliveries of vital aid.

Turkiye´s last 7.8-magnitude tremor was in 1939, when 33,000 died in the eastern Erzincan province. Monday´s first quake struck at 4:17am (0117 GMT) at a depth of about 18 kilometres (11 miles) near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which is home to around two million people, the US Geological Survey said.

Denmark´s geological institute said tremors from the main quake reached the east coast of Greenland about eight minutes after the tremor struck Turkiye. Osama Abdel Hamid, a quake survivor in Syria, said his family was sleeping when the shaking began.

“I woke up my wife and my children and we ran towards the door,” he said. “We opened it and suddenly all the building collapsed.” A spokesman for Syria´s civil defence said teams were scrambling to rescue trapped people.

“Many buildings in different cities and villages in northwestern Syria collapsed... Even now, many families are under the rubble,” said Ismail Alabdallah.

In the Syrian rebel-held town of Jandaris in Aleppo province, a mound of concrete, steel rods and bundles of clothes lay where a multi-storey building once stood. “There were 12 families under there. Not a single one came out. Not one,” said a thin young man, his eyes wide open in shock and his hand bandaged.

Raed al-Saleh of the Syrian White Helmets, a rescue service in rebel-held territory known for pulling people from the ruins of buildings destroyed by air strikes, said they were in “a race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble”.

The casualty toll in northwestern Syria was expected to increase, a spokesperson for the UN office for coordinating humanitarian affairs in northwestern Syria said. “It just adds on to all the layers of suffering,” said Madevi Sun-Suon, the spokesperson.

The United States, the European Union and Russia all immediately sent condolences and offers of help. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered to provide “the necessary assistance” to Turkiye, whose combat drones are helping Kyiv fight the Russian invasion.

Erdogan said 45 countries had offered to help the search and rescue efforts in Turkey. Images on Turkish television showed rescuers digging through rubble across city centres and residential neighbourhoods of almost all the big cities running along the border with Syria.

Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake´s epicentre between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, where entire city blocks lay in ruins under the gathering snow.

A famous mosque dating back to the 13th century partially collapsed in the province of Maltaya, where a 14-story building with 28 apartments that housed 92 people also collapsed. In other cities, social media posts showed a 2,200-year-old hilltop castle built by Roman armies in Gaziantep lying in ruins, its walls partially turned to rubble.

“We hear voices here -- and over there, too,” one rescuer was overheard as saying on NTV television in front of a flattened building in the city of Diyarbakir. “There may be 200 people under the rubble.”

The Syrian health ministry reported damage across the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Tartus, where Russia is leasing a naval facility. AFP correspondents in northern Syria said terrified residents ran out of their homes after the ground shook.

Even before the tragedy, buildings in Aleppo -- Syria´s pre-war commercial hub -- often collapsed due to the dilapidated infrastructure, which has suffered from lack of war-time oversight. Officials cut off natural gas and power supplies across the region as a precaution, also closing schools for two weeks.

“The size of the aftershocks, which may continue for days although mostly decreasing in energy, brings a risk of collapse of structures already weakened by the earlier events,” David Rothery, an earthquake expert at the Open University in Britain.

“This makes search and rescue efforts dangerous.” Turkiye is in one of the world´s most active earthquake zones.

The Turkish region of Duzce suffered a 7.4-magnitude earthquake in 1999, when more than 17,000 people died -- including about 1,000 in Istanbul. President Dr Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday extended condolences to Turkiye and Syria over the loss of lives from a massive earthquake.

In their separate messages, both expressed grief and conveyed sympathies to the governments and people of the quake-hit Turkiye and Syria.

President Alvi said, “In this hour of grief, I and the Pakistani nation stand in solidarity with the people of Turkiye and Syria.”

He prayed for the departed souls to rest in peace and for the grant of patience to the bereaved families. Prime Minister Shehbaz, meanwhile, telephoned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and conveyed condolences over the casualties and destruction caused by the earthquake which jolted Turkiye as well as Syria.

Expressing deep grief over the loss of life and property, the prime minister sympathised with the grieved families.

“The people of Pakistan are with their brotherly country of Turkiye and its people. Pakistan will extend its maximum support to the Turkish government and the people to help them cope with the quake-caused destruction,” the prime minister said.

He said the adverse impacts of climate change were deteriorating. “The natural calamities and climate change know no boundaries, region, or ethnicity,” he remarked.

The prime minister prayed to Allah Almighty for peace of the departed souls, patience to the bereaved families, and early recovery of the injured. President Erdogan thanked the prime minister for the condolatory call and for offering support.

Erdogan said he valued the sentiments of the prime minister as well as the Pakistani people. After the call, the prime minister said the teams comprising doctors, paramedics, and rescue workers were being sent to Turkiye.

He wrote on Twitter that a plane carrying medicines and other essential relief goods was also being dispatched soon. Also Foreign Office Spokesperson reiterated that Pakistan stood in complete solidarity with the brotherly people of Turkiye in the wake of unprecedented natural calamity.

“Beyond the immediate relief effort, we will continue to work with Turkiye in the post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction phases,” the spokesperson said in a press release. On the instructions of the prime minister, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) was mobilising all available resources including winterized tents, blankets and other critical life-saving supplies, it was added.

Urban Search and Rescue Teams trained to operate in disaster-hit areas were being dispatched with their equipment and medicines. “Our Mission in Ankara remains in constant touch with the relevant Turkish authorities to identify any additional requirement for the earthquake affected areas,” the spokesperson said.

The government and people of Pakistan had received the news of a massive earthquake in Southern Turkiye earlier in the day, with deep sorrow and anguish, the spokesperson said. Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also spoke to his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu to offer condolences and express solidarity and reiterated offer of support and assistance, the spokesperson further said.

A local media outlet, meanwhile reported that Shehbaz and Bilawal will make a solidarity visit to Turkiye. According to the report PM Sharif has decided to visit to the brotherly nation on Wednesday, February 8. Sharif, 71, will visit Turkiye’s capital Ankara and will interact with President Erdogan.