(Istanbul) A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey on Monday and was felt in a significant part of the country as well as in several countries in the region including neighboring Syria, killing at least fifteen people in Turkey and extensive damage according to initial reports.
According to the American seismological institute USGS, the earthquake took place at 4:17 a.m. local time (8:17 p.m. Eastern time), at a depth of about 17.9 kilometers.
The epicenter is located in the district of Pazarcik, in the province of Kahramanmaras (southeast), about 60 km as the crow flies from the Syrian border.
This earthquake is one of the most important in Turkey since the earthquake of August 17, 1999, which caused the death of 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul.
At least five people died in the Turkish province of Osmaniye (south), the governor of the province said on Monday, quoted by the state agency Anadolu.
The governor in Sanliurfa reported about 10 deaths in his province.
According to AFAD, the government’s disaster management agency, the earthquake that occurred overnight had a magnitude of 7.4 and a depth of 7 km.
The tremors, felt across the southeast of the country, were also felt in Lebanon and Cyprus, according to AFP correspondents.
Videos posted on social networks show destroyed buildings in several cities in the south-east of the country.
An AFP correspondent in Diyarbakir, a large city in the south-east of the country, saw a collapsed building, with rescuers hard at work trying to extricate people from the rubble.
On Twitter, Turkish Internet users shared the identity and location of people trapped under the rubble in several cities in the south-east of the country.
Adana city mayor Zeydan Karalar said two 17-storey and 14-storey buildings were destroyed, according to TRT.
Buildings were destroyed in many cities in the south-east of the country, including Adiyaman, Diyarbakir and Malatya, according to the private Turkish channel NTV, raising fears of victims.
Call for international help
“All our teams are on alert. We have issued a level four alarm. It is a call, including for international help,” Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu told the Haberturk channel.
“At the moment, we cannot say anything clear about the damage and the loss of human life,” he added, adding that there were victims and that 22 aftershocks had already taken place.
The governor of Gaziantep province called on residents to gather outside.
Syrian state television reported that a building near Latakia, on Syria’s west coast, collapsed after the quake.
Pro-government media said several buildings partially collapsed in Hama, central Syria.
Civil defense and Syrian firefighters are at work to extract possible victims from the rubble.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been informed of the earthquake, according to the Turkish Presidency.
Turkey is located on one of the most active seismic zones in the world.
At the end of November, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, injuring around 50 people and causing limited damage, according to the Turkish emergency services.
This same region was hard hit in August 1999 by an earthquake of magnitude 7.4, which caused the death of 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul.
In January 2020, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck the provinces of Elazig and Malatya (East), killing more than 40 people.
In October of the same year, a magnitude 7 earthquake in the Aegean Sea killed 114 people and injured more than 1,000 in Turkey.