AZMARIN, Syria (AP) — A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook large swaths of Turkey and Syria early Monday, toppling hundreds of buildings and killing more than 1,500 people. Hundreds of people are still believed to be trapped under the rubble, and the toll is expected to rise as rescuers search mounds of wreckage in towns and villages across the region.
On both sides of the border, residents shaken by the pre-dawn earthquake rushed outside on a cold, rainy and snowy night. Buildings were reduced to piles of concrete floors and major aftershocks continued to rock the area.
Rescuers and residents of several towns searched for survivors, working through tangles of metal and concrete. A hospital in Turkey has collapsed and patients, including newborn babies, have been evacuated from facilities in Syria.
In the Turkish city of Adana, a resident said three buildings near his home were toppled. “I don’t have the strength anymore,” a survivor could be heard screaming from under the rubble as rescuers tried to reach him, said resident, journalism student Muhammet Fatih Yavus.
“Because debris removal efforts continue in many buildings in the earthquake zone, we don’t know how much the number of dead and injured will increase,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. . “Let us hope that we will leave these disastrous days behind us in unity and solidarity as a country and a nation.”
The quake, which was centered north of the Turkish provincial capital of Gaziantep, was felt as far away as Cairo. It sent residents of Damascus rushing into the streets and jolted people awake from their beds in Beirut.
It hit a region that has been shaped on both sides of the border by more than a decade of civil war in Syria. On the Syrian side, the affected strip is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-controlled enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Turkey, meanwhile, is home to millions of refugees from this conflict.
Opposition-held areas in Syria are teeming with some 4 million people displaced from other parts of the country by the fighting. Many of them live in buildings already destroyed by past bombardments. Hundreds of families remained trapped in the rubble, the opposition emergency organization, called the White Helmets, said in a statement.
Health facilities and overcrowded hospitals were quickly filled with injured people, emergency workers said. Others had to be emptied, including a maternity ward, according to the medical organization SAMS.
The region sits atop major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 people were killed in an equally powerful earthquake that struck northwestern Turkey in 1999.
The US Geological Survey measured Monday’s quake at 7.8. Hours later, a magnitude of 7.5 struck more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) away. An official from Turkey’s disaster management agency said it was a new quake, not an aftershock, although its effects were not immediately clear. Hundreds of aftershocks were expected after the two quakes, Orhan Tatar told reporters.
Thousands of buildings have collapsed in a wide area stretching from the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Hama to Diyarbakir in Turkey, more than 330 kilometers (200 miles) to the northeast. A hospital collapsed in the Mediterranean coastal town of Iskenderun, but the victims were not immediately known, said its vice president, Fuat Oktay.
TV stations in Turkey broadcast screens split into fours or fives, showing live coverage of rescue efforts in the hardest-hit provinces. In the town of Kahramanmaras, rescuers pulled two children alive from the rubble, and one was seen lying on a stretcher on the snowy ground.
Offers of aid – from search and rescue teams to medical supplies and money – have poured in from dozens of countries, as well as the European Union and NATO.
Damage evident in photos of affected areas is usually associated with significant loss of life – while extremely cold temperatures and the difficulty of working in civil war-torn areas will only complicate rescue efforts, said Dr. Steven Godby, an expert in the natural sciences. dangers at Nottingham Trent University.
In Turkey, people trying to leave disaster areas have caused traffic jams, hampering the efforts of emergency teams trying to reach disaster areas. Authorities have urged residents not to use the roads. Mosques in the area have been opened to provide shelter for people unable to return to damaged homes amid near-freezing temperatures.
The earthquake severely damaged Gaziantep’s most famous landmark, its historic castle perched atop a hill in the center of town. Parts of the walls and watchtowers of the fortresses were razed and other parts heavily damaged, images from the city showed.
In Diyarbakir, hundreds of rescue workers and civilians formed lines through a mountain of wreckage, passing shattered concrete, household effects and other debris as they searched for trapped survivors while diggers were digging into the rubble below.
In northwest Syria, the quake has added new woes to the opposition-held enclave centered on Idlib province, which has been besieged for years with frequent Russian and government airstrikes . The territory depends on a flow of aid from neighboring Turkey for everything from food to medical supplies.
The opposition Syrian Civil Defense called the situation there “disastrous”.
Osama Abdelhamid, who was being treated for injuries in an Idlib hospital, said most of his neighbors died. He said their shared four-story apartment building collapsed as he, his wife and three children ran for the exit. A wooden door fell on them and acted as a shield.
“I was born again, thank God,” he said.
In the small town of Azmarin held by Syrian rebels in the mountains near the Turkish border, the bodies of several dead children, wrapped in blankets, were taken to hospital.
Syira’s General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums said the quake caused damage to the Marqab, or watchtower castle, built by the Crusaders on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. Part of a tower and parts of some walls have collapsed.
The USGS said the quake was centered about 33 kilometers (20 miles) from Gaziantep. It was 18 kilometers (11 miles) deep.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in 10 Turkish provinces, and some 7,000 injured, according to the country’s disaster management agency. The death toll in government-held areas in Syria has risen to more than 370, with some 1,000 injured. In rebel-held areas, more than 200 people were killed, according to the White Helmets, although the medical organization SAMS put the death toll at more than 135; both said hundreds were injured.
Huseyin Yayman, a lawmaker in Turkey’s Hatay province, said several of his family members were trapped under the rubble of their collapsed homes.
“There are so many other people who are also trapped,” he told HaberTurk TV by phone. “There are so many buildings that have been damaged. People are in the street. It’s raining, it’s winter.
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Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
