3 Powerful Earthquakes In 24 Hours Killed Over 2,300 In Turkey

Over 2,300 people died on Monday as the worst earthquake to hit Turkey and Syria in a century shook the area. The tremor was felt all the way in Greenland.?

Turkish and Syrian earthquakes and aftershocks have killed 2,300 people and wounded hundreds, prompting desperate searches for survivors in collapsed buildings.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake and its hundreds of aftershocks destroyed large portions of many Turkish cities, including those that were populated by refugees from the Syrian civil war and other conflicts.

The survivors' cries for help could sometimes be heard as rescuers dug through the rubble with heavy tools and their bare hands.

"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 center".

On Monday afternoon, the area was shaken by more than 50 aftershocks, including quakes with magnitudes of 7.5 and 6. This slowed down search and rescue efforts.

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State media and medical sources said that at least 810 people had died in rebel-controlled and government-controlled parts of Syria, and Turkish officials confirmed that 1,498 more people had died.

Amid the snowfall, terrified locals in Turkey ran out onto the streets to see rescue workers rummage through the rubble of their homes.

"Seven members of my family are under the debris," Muhittin Orakci, a stunned survivor in Turkey'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."

A huge winter snowfall had covered key ice and snow roadways, making the rescue mission more difficult. It has been said that the earthquake has stopped three major airports in the area from working.

In 1939, 33,000 people were killed in Turkey's eastern Erzincan region due to a 7.8-magnitude earthquake.

- 'Ran for the door' -

Monday's first quake struck at 4:17 a.m. (0117 GMT) at a depth of about 18 kilometers (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 Turkey.

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 defense 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.

The United States, the European Union, and Russia immediately sent condolences and offers of help.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, offered to provide "the necessary assistance" to Turkey, whose combat drones are helping Kyiv fight the Russian invasion.

"People buried beneath rubble"

Rescue workers were seen looking for people in the ruins of almost all of the major cities in the area near the border with Syria, which was shown on TV in Turkey.

Near the epicenter between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, entire city blocks lay in ruins as snow began to fall.

In the province of Maltaya, the partial collapse of a historic mosque from the 13th century occurred alongside the fall of a 14-story structure with 28 flats and 92 people inside.

Social media photos from other towns depicted a hilltop castle erected by Roman forces 2,200 years ago and now in ruins. The castle was located in Gaziantep.

"We hear voices here -- and over there, too," one rescuer said on NTV television in front of a flattened building in the city of Diyarbakir.

"There may be 200 people under the rubble."

- Power outages -

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, frequently collapsed due to deteriorating infrastructure caused by a lack of wartime oversight.

As a safety measure, officials cut off natural gas and electricity to the whole region and closed 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," says David Rothery, an earthquake expert at the Open University in Britain.

"This makes search and rescue efforts dangerous."?

Earthquakes are common in Turkey, which is located in a seismically active region.

In 1999, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the Turkish area of Duzce, killing over 17,000 people across the country, including almost 1,000 in Istanbul alone.

Experts have long warned that a major earthquake could wreak havoc on Istanbul, a megalopolis of 16 million people with many fragile structures.

(With AFP inputs)

For urgent assistance, you can call the British Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, at +90 312 455 3344 or +44 (0)20 7008 5000, which is available 24 hours daily. Select the option for “calling about an emergency involving a British national” to speak to an officer.

You can also reach the Turkish embassy in London at +44 (0)20 7393 0202 or email?embassy.london@mfa.gov.tr. They are located at 43 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PA.

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