Turkey and Syria: earthquake death toll soars

A complex rescue operation is under way in southern Turkey and northern Syria after two devastating earthquakes, on a scale unmatched in decades, killed more than 2,000 people and injured thousands more. The death toll and casualty numbers are still rising rapidly.

The first quake – of 7.8 magnitude – struck the southern-eastern Turkish city of Gaziantep, about 90km from the Syrian border, in the early hours of Monday while locals were asleep. Hours later, a 7.5-magnitude tremor hit Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province, 80 miles directly north of Gaziantep. 

Seismologists say this could be Turkey’s largest earthquake ever. The only other quake of such magnitude to hit the country was recorded in December 1939. It killed at least 39,000 people in the country’s north-east.

Today, almost 1,500 victims have been confirmed dead in Turkey and more than 800 in neighbouring Syria. Residents in Lebanon, Cyprus, and Gaza all felt the earth move, while shockwaves were detected as far away as Greenland.

Emerging footage depicts widespread destruction of infrastructure in both Turkey and Syria. At least 2,800 buildings are thought to have been destroyed in the first quake alone, leaving thousands without shelter.

Teams of rescuers are searching for survivors amid the rubble, yet freezing cold weather and power outages will hamper rescue efforts in the coming days. Turkey’s energy minister said that there has also been serious damage to the country’s energy infrastructure, including gas pipelines near the epicentre. 

The devastation has occurred in a densely populated area – south-east Anatolia is home to 8.3 million. It’s a region plagued by poverty, with poor infrastructure to withstand tremors. 

Seismologists have also long recognised that the East Anatolian fault zone – which runs south-west to north-west of the south-eastern border of Turkey – is one susceptible to dangerous earthquake activity. Yet since no quake has occurred there for over a century and there were no warning signs for this one, authorities were unprepared.

Critically, this is not just a region of geographical instability – it is also, at least in parts, a conflict zone. This will complicate the rescue operation. 

As Gabriel Gavin writes in Reaction today, Bashar al-Assad’s government has only a patchy hold on the parts of Syria devastated by the quake – an area where Turkish-backed rebels and Kurdish fighters have been battling for control since the start of the civil war in 2011.

The fact that the region is not under government control means many people will struggle to access Syrian medical care and emergency supplies. At present, victims are receiving help from the White Helmets, a humanitarian organisation which operates in rebel-controlled areas of Syria. The group has called for urgent aid from foreign governments.

World leaders from across Asia, Europe, and the US have all pledged to send support after Turkey issued an international appeal for help. Though we are still waiting for details of exactly what form this aid will take, especially in Syria. Even aside from the dangers of entering a conflict zone filled with landmines, sending rescue teams will be perilous since we can expect aftershocks from these earthquakes to continue for days. 

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