According to Reuters, citing Turkey’s emergency AFAD disaster service, the official death toll from the earthquakes has increased to 1,121, increasing the total number of confirmed deaths in Turkey and Syria to more than 1,700.
More than 326 people have died, and 1,042 have been injured, according to a previous report from Syria’s health ministry.
255 people have died, and 811 have been injured in the parts of northwestern Syria that the government does not control, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA).
The first earthquake, one of the strongest in the area in at least a century, happened when people slept overnight and had a magnitude of 7.8. Cairo and Cyprus both reported feeling it. The second significant earthquake measured 7.7 magnitudes and was located 67 kilometers (42 miles) north-east of Kahramanmaras, according to early data from the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC).
In 1999, Izmit was hit by a tremor in Turkey of comparable size to the recent earthquakes, which killed over 17,000 people. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, called it the deadliest calamity to hit the nation since the 1939 earthquake, which left more than 32,000 dead and more than 100,000 injured.
