More than 900 people died in the earthquake in Turkey alone
The death toll in the country has risen to 912 after a powerful earthquake struck southeastern Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this information very sadly. At least 386 people have died in neighboring Syria due to this earthquake. News from AFP and Al-Jazeera.
EarthQuak Time:
The earthquake occurred at 4:17 am local time today on Monday. The epicenter of the earthquake was the Turkish city of Gaziantep on the border with Syria. The magnitude of the earthquake was 7.8 on the Richter scale. After almost 84 years, Turkey was shaken by such a strong earthquake.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
After the earthquake, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the death toll in Turkey has risen to 912 so far. Apart from this, 5 thousand 383 people were injured. He is not able to give any idea about the number of people killed.
Meanwhile, according to information provided by the Syrian state television channel, at least 239 people died in the earthquake in the government-controlled areas of the country. Another 648 people were injured. These areas include cities such as Aleppo, Hama, Latakia, and Tartus.
Rescue Group
The White Helmets, a rescue group, reported casualties in rebel-held areas in Syria. In a tweet, they said that at least 147 people died and more than 340 were injured in the earthquake. Rescue workers are informed that many families are still trapped under the rubble. The report that the number of casualties may increase.
Most people were asleep when the earthquake hit. “This is the biggest earthquake in the history of our center,” Raed Ahmed, head of Syria’s National Seismological Center, told Rashtriya Betar station. The center was established in 1995.
Seismologist Stephen Hicks of University College London said that earlier in December 1939 there was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in northwestern Turkey. At that time 30 thousand people lost their lives. After this incident, in January 2020, 41 people were killed in an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 in the eastern city of Elazig in Turkey. More than 1,600 people were injured at that time.