Second Massive Quake Hits Turkey, Death Toll Tops 3,400
A second huge earthquake hit central Turkey on Monday, some 12 hours after a 7.8 temblor struck the southeast of the country overnight, killing at least 2,300 people there and in neighboring Syria.
The European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) reported that the second quake measured 7.5 magnitude with an epicenter some 65 km north-northeast of the city of Kahramanmaras, which has a population of around 376,000.
In #Sanliurfa the moment a building collapsed recorded by mobile phone hours after 7.8 #earthquake hits Turkey. #deprem pic.twitter.com/YDc8DH9lbn
— JournoTurk (@journoturk) February 6, 2023
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the initial quake was the worst to befall the country in over 80 years and warned that the death toll could climb. It was also the most powerful earthquake to hit the region in more than a century.
The first earthquake also was felt strongly in Syria, where the state news agency reported at least 320 people had been killed and over 1,000 more wounded. Rescue efforts were expected to prove more difficult in Syria, which has been wracked by brutal civil war for more than a decade.
The first earthquake, which struck at a little after 4 a.m. local time, caught most people while they were sleeping. Tremors from the quake were felt across the region, including Cyprus, Egypt, Israel and Lebanon.
Images from the scene of the quake showed massive devastation as rescue workers used cranes and even their bare hands in an effort to reach those trapped underneath thousands of collapsed buildings. Turkey said that 5,383 people had been injured and 2,818 buildings had collapsed in the first temblor.
Dozens of countries have offered their assistance in the rescue and recovery operations.
