More than 280 people were killed in Turkey and Syria by a magnitude 7.8 quake

An earthquake of magnitude 7.8 shook southern Turkey and northern Syria, causing hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries as well as significant damage, according to the first estimates.

Text: RFI / AFP

At least 284 people died in Turkey and more than 2,320 were injured, according to the latest balance reported by Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay.

More than a thousand buildings completely collapsed, which suggests a much more serious toll, he added.

In neighboring Syria, nearly 400 people lost their lives: at least 239 in government-controlled areas in Damascus, according to official television, and some 147 in rebel-held sectors, according to rescue services. Both sides reported hundreds of injuries.

The tremor was felt at 04:17 (01:17 GMT) and occurred at a depth of 17.9 kilometers, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The epicenter was located in the district of Pazarcik, in the province of Kahramanmaras, in the southeast of Turkey, about 60 km from the Syrian border.

The telluric movement was also felt in Lebanon and Cyprus, according to AFP journalists.

The balance is very likely to worsen quickly, taking into account the number of buildings collapsed in the most affected cities, such as Adana, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa and Diayarbakir, in southeastern Turkey.

Due to the time the earthquake occurred, at dawn, most people were sleeping at home.

“My sister and her three children are under the rubble. Also her husband, her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law. Seven members of our family are under the rubble,” Muhittin Orakci told AFP as he witnessed rescue operations outside a dilapidated building in Diyarbakir.

“His sister is still under the rubble,” said a woman pointing to another heartbroken victim in the same town.

For security reasons, the gas was cut off throughout the area, due to aftershocks and fears of explosions.

This earthquake is the most important in Turkey since the earthquake of August 17, 1999, which caused 17,000 deaths, a thousand of them in Istanbul.

Searching for survivors in Turkey

According to the Turkish vice president, at least three of the airports in the affected area, Hatay, Maras and Gaziantep, were closed to traffic.

The snow and storms that hit the region prevented traffic at other airports, including Diyarbakir’s, AFP found.

“We hear voices here and there. We think maybe 200 people are in the rubble,” a rescue worker in Diyarbakir said, according to a broadcast on NTV.

Some images on Turkish television and social media showed frightened people in pajamas wandering through the snow as they watched rescuers search through the rubble of their homes.

NTV television indicated that buildings were down in the cities of Adiyaman and Malatya.

Meanwhile, Syrian state television reported the collapse of a building near Latakia, on the country’s west coast.

Pro-government media reported that several buildings partially collapsed in Hama, central Syria, where firefighters and rescuers were trying to pull a survivor from the wreckage.

Raed Ahmed, head of Syria’s National Seismic Monitoring Center, told official radio that this was “historically the largest earthquake on record.”

“Our teams are on standby to help survivors,” tweeted the Syrian White Helmets, a team of first responders from rebel-held areas in Syria.