Two significant earthquakes, with magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.5, hit southeast Turkey and northwest Syria. They killed about 1,900 people, hurt tens of thousands more, and did a lot of damage.
At least 1,121 people have died from the earthquakes in Turkey, and another 783 deaths in Syria have been confirmed, bringing the overall death toll to 1,904.
Buildings fell over because of the earthquakes and aftershocks, and rescuers had to look through the rubble for people still alive.
Experts predicted that the death toll would rise and warned that tremors could last for days or weeks. According to the Danish Geological Institute, the tremors also affected Greenland.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted that “search and rescue personnel were swiftly dispatched” to the earthquake-affected areas.
A state of emergency was also proclaimed by the Syrian Civil Defense, a rescue organization working in the opposition-held areas of northern Syria. An appeal was made to “the international community to facilitate the rescue of civilians in Syria.”
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What location did the earthquake hit?
The epicenter of the earthquake, which occurred at 4:17 a.m. (01:17 GMT), was in Kahramanmaras, a province of Gaziantep, about 33 kilometers (20 miles) from the city of Gaziantep, the capital of Turkey, where more than two million people live, including hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who fled their country during the conflict that started in 2011.
The neighborhood has many buildings made of brittle concrete or brick masonry, making them “particularly vulnerable to earthquake shaking,” according to the US Geological Survey organization.
The earthquake’s epicenter was located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the northwest Syrian border, where 1.7 million Syrians who have been internally displaced reside in several camps under the control of opposition groups still fighting Bashar al-government. Assad’s
There are a few big cities in the area that the government controls, like Aleppo, which has about 2 million people.
Following the first quake, more than 40 aftershocks were felt, one of which with a magnitude of 7.5 struck at 1:24 p.m. (10:24 GMT) four kilometers (2.5 miles) south-southeast of the village of Ekinozu.
Chris Elders, a professor at Curtin University in Perth, Australia’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the aftershocks “spanned a distance of roughly 100km to 200km (62 to 124 miles) all over a huge fault line,” referring to the East Anatolian Fault that runs across Turkey’s southeast.
What do we know about the casualties?
At least 1,121 people had been killed as of 5 p.m. on Monday, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (2:00 GMT).
In Kahramanmaras and the nearby city of Gaziantep, rescuers were sifting through the debris of demolished houses. Adiyaman, Malatya, and Diyarbakir reported building collapses as well.
783 people have now died in Syria.
One must anticipate both widespread destruction and local disasters. Martin Mai, a geophysics professor at King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia, told Al Jazeera that rescue teams are currently in the region and that their numbers will increase over the next few days.
Because of how buildings were made, previous earthquakes in Turkey killed between 10,000 and 13,000 people. This event will significantly affect the economy because of how big it is.
In the province of Maltaya, a 14-story building that held 28 apartments and the well-known Yeni Mosque, which dates to the 13th century, fell apart.
Why was the earthquake too dangerous?
The Elders of Curtin University have stated that the tragedy was especially terrible because the earthquake was around 18 kilometers (11 miles) deep.
While that “sounds quite deep,” he added, “the energy that’s released by the earthquake would be felt quite close to the surface with considerably more intensity than if it were deeper in the crust.”
A seismologist at the Turkish Academy of Sciences named Naci Gorur has said that dams in the area should be checked quickly for damage after an earthquake.
The North Anatolian Fault connects the Anatolian Plate with the Eurasian Plate in the north of Turkey, and the East Anatolian Fault links the Anatolian Plate with the Arabian Plate in the southeast an essential fault under the country.
Turkey is geographically situated in a seismically active region.
When the Duzce earthquake hit northeastern Turkey in 1999, it killed more than 17,000 people. More than 1,000 deaths happened in Istanbul, the country’s largest city.
At 7.8 on the Richter scale, Monday’s earthquake was the strongest in Erzincan province since another 7.8 earthquakes in 1939, which also killed over 30,000 people.
