UPDATED: Turkish military sets up special air corridor to earthquake zone, Death toll in Turkey from rises above 1,000
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ISTANBUL, Feb 6 (Reuters) – The death toll in a powerful earthquake in southern Turkey on Monday has risen to 1,014, with some 2,824 buildings destroyed, the head of the disaster and emergencies management agency (AFAD) Yunus Sezer said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday it was concerned about areas in Turkey from which there had been no news following a deadly earthquake overnight.
“National authorities will be focussing on search and rescue at the moment,” a WHO spokesperson told Reuters in a statement. “Then we will expect an increased need for trauma care to treat the injured and to support the entire health system in affected areas.”
At least 912 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured when a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey overnight, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, calling it a historic disaster for which the death toll is likely to rise.
The quake was centred on the province of Kahramanmaras and shook southern Turkey and northern Syria overnight. It was followed by another powerful tremor with a 7.7 magnitude in the same region at around 1025 GMT.
Erdogan said 2,818 buildings collapsed after the first tremor, describing it as the country’s “largest disaster” since 1939, when a major quake struck the eastern province of Erzincan.
In 1999, a tremor of similar magnitude devastated Izmit and the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000.
“Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts, although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night make things more difficult,” he told reporters in a news conference at Turkey’s disaster coordination centre in Ankara.
“We do not know how high the casualty numbers will go as efforts to lift the debris continue in several buildings in the earthquake zone,” he said.
Some 9,000 personnel were taking part in the rescue operations, he said. Offers off assistance have been made by NATO, the European Union and 45 countries, he added.
Erdogan said 5,385 people had been injured in the quake as rescue operations continued, with 2,470 people rescued from the ruins of buildings.
“Today is a day for 85 million to be together as one heart,” he said.
(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu and Ezgi Erkoyun;Writing by Daren Butler;Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Angus MacSwan)
“We mobilised our planes to send medical teams, search and rescue teams and their vehicles to the earthquake zone,” the statement cited Defence Minister Hulusi Akar as saying.
More than 640 people have now died in southeast Turkey and northern Syria following this morning’s earthquake. Turkish vice president Fuat Oktay told a news conference the country’s death toll was now 284, with 2,323 people injured. The death toll in Syria was 237 – and that is just in government-held areas;
There are 147 people that have died in opposition-held areas of northwest Syria, according to rescuers
Turkey’s maritime authority said on Monday that the Iskenderun port located in the southern Turkish province of Hatay is damaged due to the major earthquake.
Following its damage inspections, the authority said on Twitter that operations continue in ports besides Iskenderun.
The impact of the massive #earthquake in the streets of Gaziantep, southern Turkey.
There is no damage to the Kerkuk-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from Iraq to Turkey, or to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and oil flows are continuing on both after a major earthquake hit Turkey, an energy official told Reuters on Monday.
However, operations at the Ceyhan oil terminal in southern Turkey were suspended, the Tribeca shipping agency said, adding that an emergency meeting was being held on the issue.
The eastern Mediterranean terminal is some 155 km (96 miles) from the area of the quake’s epicenter.
The magnitude 7.8 quakestruck southern Turkey and northwest Syria early on Monday, killing more than 500 people and injuring hundreds as buildings collapsed across the region, triggering searches for survivors in the rubble.
Earlier state pipeline operator BOTAS said natural gas flows were halted to Gaziantep, Hatay and Kahramanmaras provinces and some other districts as a result of damage to a gas transmission line.
Emergency personnel search for victims at the site of a collapsed building after a powerful earthquake in Diyarbakir, southeast of Turkey, 06 February 2023. According to the US Geological Service, an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8 struck southern Turkey close to the Syrian border. The earthquake caused buildings to collapse and sent shockwaves over northwest Syria, Cyprus, and Lebanon. 284 people were confirmed dead and more than 2,000 have been injured in Turkey, Turkish vice president said. EPA-EFE/DENIZ TEKIN
