Massive earthquake kills over 2,400 in Turkey, Syria; rescue ops underway

A huge earthquake killed more than 2,400 (at the time of going to press) people and injured thousands more on Monday in Turkey and northwest Syria, flattening apartment blocks and heaping more destruction on Syrian cities already devastated by years of war.

The 7.8 magnitude quake, which hit before sunrise in bitter winter weather, was the worst to strike Turkey this century. It was followed in the early afternoon by another large quake of 7.7 magnitude. It was not immediately clear how much damage had been done by the second quake, which like the first was felt across the region and endangered rescuers struggling to pull casualties from the rubble.

“We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home. Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I'm waiting for them,” said a woman with a broken arm and injuries to her face, speaking in an ambulance near the wreckage of a seven-storey block where she had lived in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.

In Turkey, the death toll stood at over 1,600, the disaster agency said. Over 750 people were killed in Syria, according to figures from the Damascus government and the United Nations.

Poor internet connections and damaged roads between some of the worst-hit cities in Turkey's south, homes to millions of people, hindered efforts to assess and address the impact.

Temperatures in some areas were expected to fall to near freezing overnight, worsening conditions for people trapped under rubble or left homeless. Rain was falling on Monday after snowstorms swept the country at the weekend.

It is already the highest death toll from an earthquake in Turkey since 1999, when a tremor of similar magnitude devastated the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is preparing for a tough election in May, called it a historic disaster and the worst earthquake to hit Turkey since 1939, but said authorities were doing all they could. “Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night makes things more difficult,” he said. Turkish state broadcaster TRT showed a building collapse in the southern province of Adana after the second quake. It was not immediately clear if it was evacuated. In Syria, already wrecked by more than 11 years of civil war, the health ministry said 461 people had been killed and more than 1,326 injured. 

Turkey halted crude-oil flows to the Ceyhan export terminal on the Mediterranean coast as a precaution following the earthquake, according to an official with knowledge of the matter. State pipeline operator Botas made the decision on Monday morning.

The Turkish government declined Elon Musk’s proposal to send a satellite broadband service to the country after the strongest earthquake to hit the country in decades.  Musk said on Twitter that one of his companies, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., could provide the Starlink network as soon as approved by the Turkish government.

Some of the world's deadliest earthquakes in the past two decades

August 14, 2021 - HAITI 

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck southern Haiti, killing more than 2,200 people and destroying or damaging about 13,000 homes

September 28, 2018 - INDONESIA 

A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck the island of Sulawesi, resulting in a 1.5-metre tsunami and killing more than 4,300 people

November 12, 2017 - IRAN 

A 7.3-magnitude earthquake shook the eastern Kermanshah region, killing more than 400 people. At least six people died in neighbouring Iraq

September 19, 2017 - MEXICO  

A 7.1-magnitude quake hit central Mexico, killing at least 369 people and causing more devastation in the capital city than any temblor since an earthquake in 1985 that killed thousands

August 24, 2016 -  ITALY 

A 6.2-magnitude quake struck a cluster of mountain communities east of Rome in central Italy, killing about 300 people

April 6, 2016 - ECUADOR 

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hammered Ecuador, killing more than 650 people on the Pacific coast

October 26, 2015  - AFGHANISTAN  

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked the Afghan northeast, killing nearly 400 people in the country, as well as in northern Pakistan