A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit southern Turkey on Monday, near the southeastern city of Gaziantep and was felt in several countries in the region including neighboring Syria.
According to the American seismological institute USGS, the earthquake took place at 4:17 a.m. local time, at a depth of approximately 17.9 kilometers.
According to AFAD, the government’s disaster management agency, the earthquake had a magnitude of 7.4.
The epicenter is located in the district of Pazarcik, in the province of Kahramanmaras, about 60 km as the crow flies from the Syrian border.
The tremors, felt across the southeast of the country, were also felt in Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus, according to AFP correspondents.
Turkish authorities have not yet reported any casualties, but videos posted on social media show destroyed buildings in several cities in the south-east of the country.
Buildings were destroyed in the cities of Adiyaman, Diyarbakir and Malatya, according to the private Turkish channel NTV, raising fears of victims.
Partially collapsed buildings in Syria
The governor of Gaziantep province called on residents to gather outside as the first aftershocks hit.
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 in 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 of the North-West had been hard hit in August 1999 by an earthquake of magnitude 7.4, which had caused the death of 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul.
In January 2020, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake hit 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.