Powerful earthquakes and their aftershocks have killed some 2,600 people and injured thousands more in Turkey and Syria, triggering frantic searches for survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings.
An initial magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit near the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep at 4:17am local time (01:17 GMT) on Monday, as people were sleeping, at a depth of about 17.9km (11 miles). It was also felt as far as Cyprus, Egypt and Lebanon. Dozens of aftershocks followed, with a powerful 7.6 earthquake striking the Elbistan region of Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province at 10:24 GMT.
Turkish officials, in their latest update, said the death toll stood at 1,651 people. A total of 968 people were reported dead in government-held and opposition-controlled parts of war-hit Syria.
There were fears the death toll would rise.
The Turkish government has declared a level 4 state of emergency, which includes a call for international assistance as well as the mobilisation of all national forces.
Rescuers used heavy equipment and their bare hands to peel back rubble in search of survivors, who they could in some cases hear begging for help under the debris. The rescue was being hampered by a winter blizzard that covered major roads in ice and snow. Turkish officials said the quake made three major airports in the area inoperable, further complicating deliveries of vital aid.
Authorities urged people not to enter damaged buildings due to the risks.
“Our priority is to bring out people trapped under ruined buildings and to transfer them to hospitals,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.
Videos shared on social media showed harrowing images of buildings reduced to piles of rubble in several cities in Turkey’s southeast. Local broadcasters showed images of people gathered around destroyed buildings in the town of Kahramanmaras, looking for survivors. Other images showed people taking shelter in their cars on the side of snow-covered roads.
Meanwhile in the rebel-held parts of Syria, the Syrian Civil Defence – a rescue organisation also known as the White Helmets – said the death toll was rising. The area is packed with some four million people displaced from other parts of the country by the war. Many of them live in buildings that are already wrecked from past bombardments.
Ismail Abdullah, a member of the rescue team, told Al Jazeera that the situation was “catastrophic in every sense of the word,” adding that the death toll is likely going to increase dramatically as hundreds of families are still stuck under the rubble.
“The disaster is far greater than our emergency response capacity. Thousands of families are homeless, especially as we are witnessing a snow storm, which increases the tragedy,” said Abdullah. “We are now facing a real catastrophe that we have not experienced for years,” he said.
President Bashar al-Assad was holding an emergency cabinet meeting to review the damage and discuss the next steps, his office said.
State television showed footage of rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and sleet. Health officials urged the public to help take the injured to hospitals.
The initial earthquake also jolted residents in Lebanon from their beds, shaking buildings for about 40 seconds. Many residents of Beirut left their homes and took to the streets or got in their cars to drive away from buildings.
Martin Mai, professor of geophysics at King Abdullah University, told Al Jazeera that it was one of the largest earthquakes to hit the area in hundreds of years.
“Large damage and local devastation has to be expected,” he said.
“In the past, these earthquakes in Turkey have led to about thousands of casualties due to building style construction and the sheer size of this event will have profound economic impact as well,” Mai added.
Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said the earthquake was felt across Turkey from the southern cities as far north as the Black Sea. She added that cities like Gaziantep were crowded, not only with Turkish citizens but Syrian refugees.
She also noted that poor weather conditions were making the situation worse.
“People are outside. People are scared, and it is very cold.”
