ANKARA (Halbeeg News) – At least 76 have been killed and 440 injured after scores of buildings collapsed in Turkey following a 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Monday morning.
A further 62 people were killed by the quake in Syria, a Syrian health official told AP.
The Syrian Ministry of Health put the death toll at 42 and said 200 people were injured in the aftershocks, state news agency Sana reported.
At least 130 buildings collapsed in the Turkish city of Malatya, authorities said. More than 35 buildings were levelled in Othmania.
Emergency teams were working to free people trapped underneath rubble in several cities in the south, where hundreds of buildings collapsed.
Footage broadcast by local news channels showed residents sifting through large piles of rubble in the dark while awaiting emergency rescue teams.
The death toll is expected to rise in both countries and it is not known how many people remained trapped under the rubble.
The US Geological Survey said the quake began at 4.17am local time (5.17am UAE time), with an aftershock felt 15 minutes later.
The Syrian American Medical Society (Sams) said hospitals in north-eastern Syria, which shares a border with Turkey, were “full of injured people”.
“Sams hospitals are overwhelmed and patients are being treated in the hallways and on the floors. At least two Sams maternity hospitals sustained damages and were evacuated,” a Sams official said.
Aleppo health officials told Syria’s state news agency Sana that casualties had been reported and several buildings had collapsed, including an eight-storey building in Hama city.
Hama governor Mahmoud Zanboua told Sana that the death toll has risen to nine, with 17 injuries, in a preliminary count of the casualties.
The head of a hospital in the city said a child was killed and several of his family members injured after a three-storey building collapsed, Sana reported.
The quake was followed by 17 aftershocks, the largest of which was magnitude 6.6, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority.
In Erbil, northern Iraq, roads were congested as many local residents sought shelter in their cars amid fears that their buildings would collapse.
A Syrian Civil Defence representative in Salkeen, near the Turkish border, said the situation in the city was catastrophic “after the earthquake in nearby Turkey at nearly 4.30am this morning”.
“Tens of buildings completely collapsed and there is an entire electricity blackout,” the representative said. “All the residents are out on the streets out of fear that their buildings might collapse at any moment.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Twitter: “I convey my best wishes to all our citizens who were affected by the earthquake.
“We hope that will get through this disaster together as soon as possible and with the least damage.”
There were fears that roads closed by snow storms in north-western Syria would prevent rescuers from reaching affected areas.
The Syrian Civil Defence was attempting to reopen roads in Afrin, an area in the northern countryside of Aleppo, and Khirbet Al Jawz in the western countryside of Idlib.
“Northern Syria does not have the capacity to treat the injured, let alone perform resuscitation efforts for the fallen. This is why we will be seeing the death toll rise like exponentially throughout the day,” said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
In Lebanon, some residents reportedly ran out of their homes as they feared the possibility of more aftershocks.
The EU’s Arabic spokesman for the Mena region, Luis Miguel Bueno, said on Twitter that the earthquake was felt in Beirut.
People in Lebanon showed outrage at the lack of government response to the aftershocks.
“The Lebanese government is completely absent, not informing the people [about] precautionary measures, possible earthquakes and shelters,” one person wrote on Reddit.
“Nothing, not even an emergency broadcast,” another said.
The quake was felt as far away as Cyprus.
Italy’s Civil Protection Authority warned of a possible tsunami, advising people to move away from coastal areas and seek higher ground, it said.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the US was “profoundly concerned” by the reports of the earthquake.
“We stand ready to provide any and all needed assistance,” he said. “President [Joe] Biden has directed USAid and other federal government partners to assess US response options to help those most affected. We will continue to closely monitor the situation in co-ordination with the government of Turkey.”
Turkey experienced its deadliest earthquake in 1999 when 17,000 people were killed in a 7.4-magnitude quake that struck at 3am local time.
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