Earthquakes in Turkey – Syria: What we know so far – Among the strongest in a century

Two earthquakes – among the strongest in a century – they hit southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria today, leveling entire regions, killing thousands of people and injuring tens of thousands.

The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that his country had suffered the “greatest disaster” since the 1939 earthquakes in Erzincan, where nearly 32,000 people were killed.

Here are the details of the tragedy so far:

When and where;

The first earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.8, occurred at 04:17 local time (03:17 Greek time).

The epicenter was in Pazarchik district, Kahramanmaras province (southeast), about 60 kilometers from the border with Syria, at a focal depth of about 17.9 kilometers.

Dozens of aftershocks followed, before a new strong earthquake of magnitude 7.5 at 12:24 Greek time, again in southeastern Turkey, 4 kilometers southeast of the city of Ikinozu.

Provisional casualty counts

Archaeological sites have been affected in Syria, namely the Aleppo citadel, an architectural jewel of the medieval era, and its old city, which in 2018 was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Danger, after years of civil war.

In Turkey, Erdogan reported nearly 3,000 building collapses in seven different provinces – 2,834 according to AFAD.

In particular, cities such as Adana, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, but also Iskenderun (Alexandretta) and Antiyaman, where public hospitals have collapsed, have been affected.

International assistance

The international community quickly responded to a call for international aid from Turkey.

Despite the bilateral tensions, both Greece and Sweden pledged to send aid to Turkey.

Many countries such as the United Kingdom, India, Azerbaijan, have expressed their readiness to provide assistance.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had “approved” the aid mission to Syria, following a request from Damascus received through “diplomatic channels”, as he said.