Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan has announced seven days of national mourning following devastating earthquakes that killed over 5,000 people and destroyed houses in southeast Turkey and northern Syria.
Authorities fear that the death toll from Monday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake, followed by a magnitude 7.6 earthquake and several aftershocks, will rise further as rescuers search for survivors among tangles of metal and concrete spread across a region already suffering from Syria’s 12-year civil war and a refugee crisis.
Rescuers worked through the night and into Tuesday morning, trying to pull more survivors from the wreckage while those trapped screamed out for aid from beneath mounds of rubble.
Fuat Oktay, Turkey’s Vice President, stated on Tuesday that the death toll from the earthquakes in Turkey had risen to 3,419.
An official with Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, Orhan Tatar, stated earlier on Tuesday that 20,426 people were hurt. According to Tatar, around 5,700 structures were also destroyed.
According to the Ministry of Health and the White Helmets rescue group, at least 1,602 people were killed and about 3,500 were injured in Syria.
The original earthquake had a magnitude of 7.8 and a depth of 18 kilometers, according to the US Geological Survey (11 miles). A 7.6 magnitude temblor struck hours later. According to video of the event, the second shock caused a multi-story apartment building in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa to tumble onto the street in a cloud of dust as spectators shouted.
According to Orhan Tatar, a disaster management official in Turkey, more than 7,800 individuals had been rescued across ten regions. According to rescue personnel, overcrowded hospital facilities have swiftly filled with injured individuals.