at least 600 people have died in Turkey y Syria by an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude during the early hours of this Monday and whose epicenter has been near the city of Kahramanmarasin the southeast of Turkey and a few kilometers from the border with Syria.
The earthquake, the largest in memory in the Anatolian country since 1999 —that, close to istanbulwas 7.6 and left more than 17,000 dead— has caused the destruction of thousands of residential buildings in various cities in the region, such as Adana, Antakya, Kilis, Gaziantep, Malatya and Diyarbakirin addition to Kahramanmaras.
“Our search and rescue teams They have been sent immediately to the regions affected by the earthquake. Our Ministry of Interioremergency services and governors are working quickly ”, the Turkish president said on his social networks this morning Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In total, of the more than 600 deaths, 284 of the deaths have occurred on the Turkish side from the border; the others, more than 230, have occurred in regions of Syria controlled by the government of Damascus and Bashar al-Asadespecially in the provinces of Aleppo, Hama, Latakya and Tartousaccording to the Syrian government.
The figures, however, will only increase in both countries: the region is experiencing a cold snap and a winter storm with snowfall and frost expected through at least Thursday of this week. In addition, according to the Turkish government, the rescue tasks have only just begun, and there would currently be hundreds or even thousands of people trapped under the runes of their destroyed buildings.
Television images in Turkey show how citizens, at dawn and during this morning, try to lift the rubble to get their neighbors out from under the runes.
The main earthquake that occurred this Monday morning began at 4 a.m. local time, and has been classified as 7.8 on the Richter scale. However, during the following hours, more than a dozen aftershocks throughout the region, some of which have been as large as 6.6 on the Richter scale.
“We ask our citizens not to use the phone too much and to keep the telecommunication lines without occupying, and that they leave their houses and do not stay in them. The aftershocks could cause the collapse of more buildings that were damaged in the first quake,” the Turkish government said in a statement.