The 7.8 magnitude tremor caught people in southeast Turkey and neighboring Syria in the middle of the night. Several more aftershocks followed on Monday, one of them with a magnitude of 7.6, only slightly heavier than the original tremor. The tremors were felt in several neighboring countries, including Lebanon, Iraq, Cyprus and Israel.
The consequences of the earthquake are devastating. Countless houses collapsed, burying people under the rubble. By midnight, almost 4,000 people had died in the two countries. It is to be feared that the number will continue to rise in view of the large number of buried people. At the same time, rescue workers hope to be able to continue rescuing survivors from the rubble.
48 hours critical limit
Time is of the essence. The chances of survival for people trapped under collapsed buildings are between a few and 48 hours, according to aid organizations and experts. “The next 24 hours are crucial to find survivors. After 48 hours, the number of survivors decreases enormously,” said British volcanologist and risk researcher Cemnen Solana from the University of Portsmouth.
Red Cross helper to the devastating earthquakes
After the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria on Monday night, the death toll is increasing almost every hour. Martina Schloffer, Deputy Head of Operations and International Cooperation at the Red Cross, is a guest at ZIB2.
Thousands of buildings collapsed in the tremors in south-east Turkey alone. Videos from several cities in the area showed partially completely destroyed streets. Among the collapsed buildings was a hospital in the town of Iskenderun, in addition to residential houses. Pictures of helpers, some of whom were looking for people who had been buried in the rubble with their bare hands, could be seen on Turkish television. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke of the worst earthquake since 1939.
Syria turned to UN member states, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other aid agencies, asking them to “support the Syrian government’s efforts to deal with the devastating earthquake,” according to a statement by the Syrian Foreign Ministry. According to the state news agency SANA, buildings collapsed in numerous cities. Videos showed mountains of rubble from the province of Idlib, among other things, with entire rows of houses sometimes collapsing.
Winter cold exacerbates situation
The rescue work was made more difficult by the low temperatures – they are currently often below zero in the affected areas. In some places it snowed heavily. The Turkish state broadcaster TRT showed how people were freed from the rubble in the snow in the city of Iskenderun.
Pictures were also shown from the cities of Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Osmaniye, Diyarbakir and Adana, in which people were being transported away, some wrapped in blankets. According to the Turkish authorities, more than 2,000 people have been rescued alive so far. According to previous information, more than 14,000 people were injured in the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
Circuit to Istanbul and Cairo
Katharina Wagner (Istanbul) and Karim El-Gawhary (Cairo) report on the dramatic search for survivors after the earthquake catastrophe in Turkey and Syria.
In addition to the search for survivors and the care of the injured, it is also important to help those who have become homeless as a result of the earthquake. According to aid organizations, there are thousands of people in both countries. Here, too, the wintry temperatures exacerbate the situation.
Calls for and promises of help
Numerous organizations started appeals for help, including Caritas, the Red Cross, Diakonie, Doctors Without Borders, the Arbeitersamaritanbund, CARE and World Vision. Caritas Foreign Aid General Secretary Andreas Knapp said that the main thing was to cover basic needs, such as “first aid, food and water, blankets and sleeping bags, psychological care and the coordination of accommodation”. Above all, Syria, which has been hit by several crises, was caught in a devastating situation.
Offers of help have now come from numerous countries, and the first international rescue teams are already in the affected regions or on their way there. It should be at least days before the actual extent of the consequences of the catastrophe becomes visible.
Region with constant risk of earthquakes
Turkey is repeatedly affected by severe earthquakes. Two of the largest continental plates meet there: the African and the Eurasian. In fact, most of the Turkish population lives in constant danger of earthquakes.
In 1999, Turkey was hit by one of the worst natural disasters in its history: a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in the region around the north-western industrial city of Izmit claimed the lives of more than 17,000 people. As a result of this devastating earthquake, the Turkish government passed a new law in 2004 that requires all structures to meet modern earthquake-proof standards.
However, experts doubt that all construction projects in recent years have actually been implemented accordingly. You will now have to check whether the newly built buildings meet the legal standards, “whether the requirements are sufficient and whether there are ways to improve the security of older buildings,” says Joanna Faure Walker from the British Institute for Risk and Disaster Preparedness (UCL ). A strong earthquake is also expected in the near future, not least for Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey.
