Turkey Earthquake Latest News: The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) has said that an earthquake of 5.6 magnitude hit central Turkey on Tuesday. This was the fourth quake to hit Turkey and was at a depth of 2 km.
India has dispatched its first consignment of earthquake relief material to Turkey on an Indian Air Force aircraft.The batch also consisted of an expert National Disaster Response Force search and rescue team, dog squads, medical supplies, advanced drilling equipment among other tools required for rescue efforts.”India’s Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) capabilities in action. The 1st batch of earthquake relief material leaves for Turkiye, along with NDRF Search and Rescue Teams, specially trained dog squads, medical supplies, drilling machines and other necessary equipment,” Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs tweeted.
The rescue teams kept searching through the debris all night on Monday, hoping to pull more survivors from the rubble after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 4,000 people and toppled thousands of buildings across a wide region.
Turkey and Syria are witnessing the worst disaster in recent times after two powerful earthquakes struck the border areas of the two countries on Monday. The epicentre of the first earthquake was in Kahramanmaras province of southern Turkey. This was near the borders of northern Syria. Tremors were felt from Cairo in Egypt to Great Britain. With a magnitude of 7.8, this was the first of the two tremblors that struck Kahramanmaras in pre-dawn hours at a depth of 18 km, according to the USGS data. The jolt toppled several buildings in both Turkey and Syria.
(With Agency Inputs)
As the rescuers race against time to save those trapped under debris, here are latest updates from the disaster zone:
Turkey Syria Earthquake death toll latest updates rescue mission
Emergency teams search for people in the rubble of a destroyed building in Gaziantep, Turkey, Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. A powerful quake has knocked down multiple buildings in southeast Turkey and Syria and many casualties are feared. (Image: AP/PTI)
The European Union has mobilised search and rescue teams to help Turkey, while the 27-nation bloc's Copernicus satellite system has been activated to provide emergency mapping services, as per AP report. The report further said that at least 13 member countries have offered assistance to quake-hit Turkey. The EU said it's also ready to offer help to Syria through its humanitarian assistance programmes.
According to a Reuters report, the East Anatolian Fault is a strike-slip fault where solid rock plates are pushing up against each other across a vertical fault line, building stress until one finally slips in a horizontal motion, releasing a tremendous amount of strain that can trigger an earthquake.
An earthquake of 5.6 magnitude struck central Turkey on Tuesday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, reported Reuters. The quake was at a depth of 2 km, EMSC said.
Rescuers of International Search and Rescue (ISAR) Germany prepare before boarding a charter plane, on their way to help find survivors of the deadly earthquake in Turkey, at Cologne-Bonn airport, Germany, February 6. (Image: Reuters)
The epicentre was about 26 km east of the Turkish city of Nurdagi at a depth of about 18 km on the East Anatolian Fault, as per Reuters. The report further suggested that the quake radiated towards the northeast, bringing devastation to central Turkey and Syria.
'My wife was trapped under me. I didn't hear from her for a very long time,' said Hulusi Ibrahim, a survivor in the deadly earthquake in Turkey, recalling what he expects were his final moments with his wife pic.twitter.com/qaujBSZ5FI
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 7, 2023
A team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel along with a specially trained dog squad and necessary equipment has departed from Hindon Airbase in Ghaziabad to carry out search and rescue operations in Turkey, and ANI report said. India has sent the NDRF team to Turkey after earthquakes jolted Turkey and Syria on Monday.
Rescue workers and civilians passed chunks of concrete and household goods across mountains of wreckage early on Monday, moving tons of wreckage by hand in a desperate search for survivors trapped by a devastating earthquake. “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. Many people crouched to look below a massive sheet of cement propped at an angle by steel bars. They crawled in and out, trying to reach survivors. Excavating equipment dug through the rubble below. AP
US President Joe Biden on Monday said his administration has been working closely with Turkey, authorizing an immediate Washington response to the devastating earthquake there. The earthquake killed more than 2,200 people and injured thousands more in Turkey and northwest Syria, flattening apartment blocks and heaping more destruction on Syrian cities already devastated by years of war. “Our teams are deploying quickly to begin to support Turkish search and rescue efforts and address the needs of those injured and displaced by the earthquake,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House. – Reuters
A large fire burned and a plume of black smoke drifted high into the air on Monday above Turkey's southern Iskenderun port, in the Mediterranean Sea-side province of Hatay, according to Reuters witnesses and footage. The region was hit by two major earthquakes earlier in the day, leaving widespread damage and loss of life. It was not immediately clear what was burning. – Reuters
According to the USGS, the earthquake that jolted swathes of Turkey and Syria was 11 miles or 18 kilometres deep. Since it was a very shallow tremor with high magnitude, the impact was extremely devastating.
Gaziantep. The earthquake of 7.8 magnitude was centered here. This Turkish town is located near the borders of Syria.
A steady stream of injured were flowing into an overwhelmed hospital in the town of Darkush, in rebel-held northwestern Syria on Monday, after a deadly earthquake struck the region. Mothers hovered over crying children. Amid the chaos, one man sat with a dazed expression, his face covered with abrasions. The man, Osama Abdul Hamid, had barely made it out alive with his wife and four children from his apartment building in the nearby village of Azmarin. Many of their neighbours were not so lucky. The quake caused total and partial damage to buildings in at least 58 villages, towns and cities in northwestern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor. – AP