The magnitude 7.8 earthquake has collapsed entire apartment blocks in Turkish cities and caused further devastation for the millions of Syrians displaced by years of war.
The worst earthquake to hit Turkiye this century, it occurred before sunrise in severe weather and was followed by another large 7.5 magnitude earthquake in the early afternoon .
“It’s like the end of the world,” said Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a Syrian from the northern town of Atareb. “It was very cold and there was heavy rain, and people needed to be saved.”
The second quake was large enough to knock down more buildings and, like the first, it was felt across the area, endangering rescuers trying to pull casualties out of the rubble.
In Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkiye, a woman standing next to the rubble of the seven-story building where she lived said: “We shook like a cradle. There are nine of us at home. My two sons are still in ruins, I’m waiting for them.”
She was tending to a broken arm and a wound on her face.
It was the largest earthquake recorded by the United States Geological Survey worldwide since the distant South Atlantic earthquake in August 2021.
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In Turkiye, the death toll is 1,651, health minister Fahrettin Koca said, and 11,119 people were reported injured. At least 968 people have been killed in Syria, according to figures from the Damascus government and rescue workers in the rebel-held northwestern region.
Poor internet connections and damaged roads between some of the worst-affected cities in southern Turkiye, home to millions of people, have hampered efforts to assess and address the impact.
Temperatures in some areas are expected to drop to near-freezing levels overnight, worsening the condition of those trapped under rubble or homeless. Rain fell on Monday after a snowstorm swept the country over the weekend.
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It was the deadliest earthquake in Turkiye since 1999, when an earthquake of similar magnitude devastated a densely populated area in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000 people.
Chairperson Recep Tayyip Erdoğanwho is preparing for tough elections in May, calling it a historic disaster and the worst earthquake to hit Turkiye since 1939, but said authorities are doing all they can.
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“Everybody is doing their best even though winter, cold weather and earthquakes happen at night make things more difficult,” he said.
Turkey’s state broadcaster TRT showed a building in Adana province, southern Turkey, collapsing after a second earthquake. It was not immediately clear if it was evacuated.
In Syria, which has been ravaged by more than 11 years of civil war, the Health Ministry said 538 people have been killed and more than 1,326 injured. In the rebel-held northwestern region, emergency workers say 430 people have died.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said the quake would only add to the pain of millions of Syrians already suffering from the humanitarian crisis caused by the civil war.
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In the Turkish city of Diyarbakir, Reuters journalists watched dozens of rescue workers search through the rubble, all that remained of a large building, and pull debris out. as they search for survivors. Sometimes they raise their hands to call for silence, to listen to the sounds of life.
Men carry a girl wrapped in blankets from a collapsed building in the city. IN IzmirDrone footage shows rescuers standing atop a crumbling hill where a building once stood, working to lift bricks.
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Footage that has gone viral on Twitter shows two neighboring buildings collapsing in Syria one after another. Aleppofill the streets with dust.
Two residents of the city, which has been devastated by the war, said buildings collapsed hours after the quake, which was also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon.
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In the rebel-held town of Jandaris in Aleppo province, a pile of concrete, steel bars and bundles of clothes lay in what used to be a multi-storey building.
“There are 12 families down there. Not a single one appeared. No one,” said a thin young man, eyes wide in surprise and hands bandaged.
Raed al-Saleh of the Syrian White Helmets, a rescue service in rebel-held territory known for pulling people from the rubble of buildings destroyed by air strikes, said They are in a “race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble”.
In the Syrian government-controlled city of Hama, a Reuters journalist saw a seemingly lifeless child being pulled out of the rubble of a building.
Syrian state television showed footage of rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and snow. His office said President Bashar al-Assad held an emergency cabinet meeting to review the damage and discuss next steps.
Erdogan said 45 countries have offered to help search and rescue efforts in Turkiye.
In the Turkish city of Malatya, a rescue worker crawls into a collapsed building, trying to identify a survivor trapped under the rubble, in footage released by the Emergency Management Agency and The disaster of Turkiye announced.
“What color are you wearing? Do you wear pink? Please take care of yourself in the meantime, I can’t see anything else,” the lifeguard said.
