On Monday, a tremendous 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey, killing over 1,300 people in the nation and neighboring Syria, with dozens more buried in the wreckage when another big temblor struck the region.
Residents joined rescuers in the frigid weather to look for survivors, with the death toll expected to rise as the extent of the devastation from the initial violent pre-dawn temblor became known.
The earthquake shocked people awake and rattled buildings as far away as Lebanon and Israel. A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck the same area just hours later, raising the prospect of a new humanitarian crisis in a country scarred by years of conflict.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated the death toll in his country has reached at least 912 people, with 5,383 more injured.
In Syria, where over 4 million people had been displaced as a result of nearly 12 years of civil war, hundreds more were crushed to death in structures that had already been demolished or weakened by shelling.
The quake struck a region of northwest Syria that is divided between government-held territory and the country's last rebel-controlled pocket. Turkey is home to millions of conflict refugees.
According to the country's health ministry, at least 326 people were killed and 1,000 were injured in government-controlled areas. Members of the opposition emergency organization known as the White Helmets said the earthquake killed at least 150 people and injured hundreds more in opposition-held areas.
That takes the combined death toll across the two borders to at least 1,388, with fears it may still rise substantially.
“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 wounds on her face, speaking to Reuters in an ambulance near the wreckage of a seven-story block where she had lived in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 20 miles from Gaziantep, Turkey, a major city and provincial capital, when it struck at 3:17 a.m. local time.
It was centered 11 miles deep, and a strong 6.7-magnitude aftershock rumbled about 10 minutes later. At least 20 aftershocks followed in total, some hours later.
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