Thousands killed in Turkey’s most powerful quake in century
Authorities face a desperate race to rescue people trapped in the rubble after two of the deadliest earthquakes to ever hit Turkey
BRITAIN sent a 76-strong search and rescue team to help Turkey and Syria amid fears 20,000 people could have been killed in the region’s most powerful earthquake in nearly a century.
It was feared thousands could still be trapped as night fell yesterday with rescuers racing to find survivors in the rubble before already freezing winter temperatures dropped even further.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit before sunrise when most people were sleeping. Apartment blocks collapsed and rescuers dug to reach friends and family with their bare hands. A second earthquake, measuring 7.5, struck in the afternoon after dozens of aftershocks.
“We thought it was the apocalypse,” said Melisa Salman, a 23-year-old in the south-eastern Turkish city of Kahramanmaras.
The death toll across both countries was estimated to be at least 3,500 but is expected to climb sharply. More than 2,300 people were killed in Turkey, and
nearly 1,300 people died in Syria. The number of injured in Turkey and Syria, already ravaged by a 12 year civil war, was said to be at least 13,000.
The US Geological Survey warned that the death toll could reach 20,000. Turkey’s last 7.8-magnitude earthquakewas in 1939, when 33,000 died.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, declared seven days of national mourning.
“Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night makes things more difficult,” he said.
There was a “mad rush” to get people out from under the rubble before temperatures dropped, lnur Cevik, an adviser to the president, said.
Rescuers short of equipment were forced to listen for sound of life amid the devastation, he told the BBC.
“[People are asked to stay] silent so that they can hear some people calling for help,” he said. “Can anyone hear me?” shouted rescuers trying to find people in the province of Kahramanmaras,
the epicentre. In some places around Turkey, survivors could be heard screaming from beneath collapsed buildings. Others live-streamed themselves in half-flattened buildings in the hope of alerting rescuers. One middleaged woman filmed herself and another woman trapped under bricks and cement blocks.
Around 3,400 buildings were reduced to rubble in Turkey, while
Syria announced dozens of collapses, as well as damage to archaeological sites in Aleppo.
Raed Ahmed, head of Syria’s National Earthquake Centre, called it “the biggest earthquake recorded in the history of the centre”. It was so powerful it was felt in parts of Greenland, more than 3,000 miles away, the Danish Geological
Institute said. The earthquake struck at 1.17am GMT at a depth of 11 miles close to the Turkish city of Gaziantep, home to around two million people. It almost entirely destroyed the hilltop Gaziantep castle, a fortress built during the Roman Empire.
About 45 countries offered aid and support to the two countries after Turkey issued a formal request to Nato and the European Union.
British specialists with rescue equipment and four search dogs were due to arrive in Turkey last night.
London was also in contact with the United Nations about support for Syria, where Uk-backed White Helmets launched rescue operations. “The UK stands ready to help in whatever way we can,” said Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister.
Joe Biden, the US president, promised “any and all needed assistance.” Volodymr Zelensky and Vladmir Putin, the warring presidents of Ukraine and Russia, also offered their support.
‘Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although the cold weather makes it more difficult’
LONG after midnight the excavators tore urgently at the rubble of the collapsed apartment building, working through the freezing night to remove rebar and concrete and clothing and carpet, though the rescue workers knew the likelihood of finding survivors was slim.
This was a recovery operation, not a rescue, said Ilker, a 43-year-old environmental engineer whose aunt was missing under the rubble of this building on Süleyman Demirel Boulevard on the outskirts of Adana in southern Turkey, 140 miles from one of yesterday’s twin earthquakes.
“We are still hoping, even though we know in our hearts it is nearly impossible for them still to be alive,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “But we still have hope until we see what the result is.”
The 16-storey building, with two apartments per floor, had collapsed entirely, each floor pulverising the one below, leaving a mound under which it seemed impossible to survive, “unless they’re in a triangle pocket and not frozen,” said Ilker.
Another 10 buildings in Adana had reportedly collapsed, with rescuers calling for silence around destroyed buildings so they could locate the screams of people trapped under them.
Throughout the day neighbours and relatives like Ilker had maintained a mournful vigil in the courtyard of the building, huddling under blankets and warming themselves around fires.
Into the night they waited, a woman’s sobs carrying over the drone of the diggers. Ilker vowed to remain until his aunt’s body was found, though he expected this could take another day. As rescue workers uncovered photographs from the debris, the neighbours and relatives passed around the battered prints, trying to identify whose apartment they were now working through.
Ilker had heard that some homes had up to 10 children living in them. He didn’t know how many people lived there but said: “The number of people recovered so far are much less than the number I believe were in the building.”
Some of the recovered bodies were mangled beyond recognition, said Ilker. “There was no face, there was no head,” he said of a child pulled out earlier.
In the 1999 earthquake he lost friends. “This is the first time it’s my relative. We have further relatives in Kahramanmaras who are also under rubble,” he said referring to another city close to the epicentre of the 7.8 magnitude quake.
“I am angry,” he said. “Every time after every earthquake our country decides to take some precautions but after some time we forget about them.”
As the first 7.8-magnitude quake struck at about 4.17am local time, countless families were crushed to death while they slept in their beds. But many others clung to life as they cried out for help. Some, who were still able to use their phones, posted livestreams where they gave their addresses and begged people to come and dig them out.
In Diyarbakir, one of the worst affected cities in Turkey, survivors told The Telegraph that the shaking was so intense that they were left feeling dizzy and drunk. At dawn, after sleeping in their cars or digging through rubble, survivors watched in horror as the rising sun revealed the devastation where entire neighbourhoods had once stood.
As of last night, at least 3,500 people had died across Syria and Turkey. The figure is expected to continue to rise sharply as rescuers arrive in the worst hit provinces of both countries.
The World Health Organization warned that the death toll could end up surpassing 20,000.
A further 10,000 people have been injured and untold thousands of buildings, including those in refugee camps in northern Syria, have been destroyed.
At a press conference yesterday morning, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, announced that his nation had been struck by “the biggest disaster since the 1939 Erzincan earthquake”, which killed 32,000 people.
“I wish God’s mercy on our citizens,” he said, as dozens of countries pledged to help, including Britain, which yesterday dispatched a 76-strong search and rescue team.
Throughout yesterday morning, TV drones hovered over Turkish rescuers and residents in 10 cities as they formed human chains to remove debris from the collapsed buildings.
Among the survivors in Turkey’s southern coastal town of Samandag was Baris Yapar, a 28-year-old master’s student. Sitting in his car, he told The Telegraph by phone that he was right outside his grandparents’ home, which had collapsed with them still inside.
“I was in my room sleeping and woke up to the tremors as my dad rushed in my room,” he said. The family fled the building as it shook, he said, and they went straight to his grandparents’ house. But as the streets reverberated with the “screams and crying” of residents, Mr Yapar found that “all the buildings had already collapsed... they were still underneath the rubble”.
He was still waiting for emergency services to arrive at the time of the call.
Rescue workers have been overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster and, while crews from Istanbul and further afield are on their way, Mr Yapar said people could only fret and wait.
“People like us are still outside: afraid to go back home or waiting for bodies of our relatives,” he said.
The sheer scale of the devastation was hard to fathom yesterday morning, stretching from the Turkish cities of Hatay and Gaziantep down to northern Syrian refugee camps and cities across the border, including Aleppo.
In southern Turkey, people trapped in damaged buildings made online pleas for rescue. “I am under the building debris with my family, please help,” wrote Muzaffer Bilsin in Kahramanmaras, a town northwest of Gaziantep close to the earthquake’s epicentre.
Hours later, he posted a new message. “I removed the wall above me and saved my brother, the wall had fallen on us. But my family is still inside, there is no sound, no one in charge has come.”
At 1pm local time, as people were still processing the horror of the first quake, a second hit with a magnitude of 7.5.
In Malatya, in Gaziantep province, one Turkish reporter abandoned his live broadcast about the first earthquake so he could grab a young girl and rush to safety. The cameraman continued to film as the reporter scooped the girl up in his arms and took her away from a building that had just collapsed.
The destruction also struck at the heart of Turkish history: a 2,000-yearold castle in Diyarbakir was ripped apart; one in Gaziantep was damaged.
“Since I live in an earthquake zone, I am used to being shaken, but that was the first time we have ever experienced anything like that,” said reporter Melisa Salman, 23, in Kahramanmaras. “We thought it was the apocalypse.”
There were some glimmers of hope. Turkish television and social media periodically lit up with news that a child had been pulled alive from huge slabs of concrete debris. NTV television showed a little girl named Zehra – looking slightly dazed and asking for her father – being wrapped in a wool blanket and put in the back of a waiting sedan.
But in neighbouring Syria, many were not so lucky. Ismail Mohammed, a White Helmets rescue worker in Idlib, wept as he told how six buildings in a row had collapsed, their five storeys pancaking into huge piles of rubble.
“Each of them was inhabited by families,” he said through tears, “and now they are under the rubble. This was worse than bombing… the whole neighbourhood collapsed.”
As daylight started to fade, shock turned to anger as residents in some Turkish cities criticised the slow response. “The state is not here. Including the [emergency services agency] AFAD. No one is here,” Meryem Sut, a 32-year-old resident of Samandag, said. “Every third house has collapsed. No one is distributing food.”
Aid workers warned that the freezing temperatures posed further risks to those left homeless, particularly those crushed but alive in refugee camps and towns in war-torn northern Syria.
In London, James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, said the Government was not aware of any British fatalities but warned: “It’s far too early for us to say that won’t be the case.”