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MORE than 20,000 people could be dead after two “once-in-a-century” earthquakes rocked Turkey and Syria, the World Health Organisation has warned.
A massive 7.8 magnitude shock – one of the biggest for 100 years – was followed hours later by another huge 7.5 magnitude quake, devastating at least 12 cities.
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Frantic survivors used their bare hands to dig through the rubble of flattened homes and were filmed pulling children to safety amid scenes of utter destruction.
The twin earthquakes also sparked tsunami alerts on Mediterranean coasts in Greece, Cyprus and Italy, and shaking was felt as far away as Egypt and Iran.
By night time the confirmed death toll was over 3,700 – but the WHO has warned the total could rocket to more than 20,000 as rescuers find more victims in the rubble.
Catherine Smallwood, WHO senior emergency officer for Europe, said: “We always see the same thing with earthquakes, unfortunately, which is that the initial reports of the numbers of people who have died or who have been injured will increase quite significantly in the week that follows.”
Most victims were asleep when the initial mega quake hit at 4am local time.
The 7.8 shock was the biggest in Turkey for “hundreds of years”, geophysics professor Martin Mai told the BBC.
It struck near Gaziantep in eastern Turkey at a depth of around 15 miles.
The powerful quake was followed by dozens of powerful aftershocks which toppled already damaged buildings in great heaps of dust.
Then just before 1.30pm a second massive quake of magnitude 7.5 sent terrified locals running into the streets.
Videos showed buildings collapsing as rescue workers fled for their lives amid dust and chaos.
The second quake – which was just six miles deep with an epicentre 59 miles north of the first – would itself have been the region’s most powerful since 1999.
An official from Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said it was “not an aftershock” and was “independent” from the earlier quake.
Earthquake experts said it lay on a separate fault line but would almost certainly have been triggered by the initial shock.
Northern Syria was also devastated by the double shocks which caused buildings to violently shake side-to-side.
It is expected to be one of the worst-ever disasters in a region that is susceptible to catastrophic earthquakes.
“Turkey has experienced the deadliest earthquake worldwide four times in the last 50 years so is no stranger to the deadly consequences of such events,” said UCL professor Joanna Faure Walker.
So far at least 2,316 people are confirmed dead in Turkey, said the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency.
Another 13,000 people were injured and 5,600 buildings were destroyed, authorities added.
At least 1,444 people were killed in Syria and about 3,500 injured, according to figures from the Damascus government and organisations in opposition-held areas.
Survivors of the destruction face freezing conditions and potential disease.
He told CNN: “This population was already highly vulnerable. They have a huge amount of people who have already been displaced — sometimes as many as 20 times.
“Almost the majority of them are women and children, particularly vulnerable to the harsh weather and this earthquake.”
Horror pictures from earlier showed the devastation after tower blocks collapsed – crushing and trapping people inside at 4am local time.
Striking just before dawn, the epicentre was near the town of Nurdagi, Turkey.
The ground began to shake as many people were still asleep in their beds and unable to flee.
Melisa Salman, of Kahramanmaras, said living in an earthquake zone meant she was used to “being shaken”.
But she told the BBC: “It’s the first time we have ever experienced anything like that.
“We thought it was the apocalypse.”
More than 120 aftershocks followed along a 200-mile fault line including three of greater than 6.0 magnitude.
And elsewhere, a massive column of fire was seen as a gas pipeline ruptured.
Footage shared on social media reportedly shows the scene in Kahramanmara as flames lit up the night sky.
Gas flows were suspended in the city and into Hatay and Kahramanmaraş after the explosion, according to BOTAS.
Buildings were reported collapsed across a 200-mile swathe of cities from Diyarbakir in Turkey to Aleppo and Hama in Syria.
Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake’s epicentre between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, where entire city blocks lay in ruins under the gathering snow.
Gaziantep Castle, which was built more than 2,200 years ago, collapsed during the earthquake.
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As dawn broke desperate rescue operations were underway in a bid to free those trapped under the rubble.
Video showed the moment one family was pulled alive from the wreckage of their home Turkey and a young boy being rescued in Syria.
In Syria, buildings already damaged by years of civil war collapsed in areas that are home to millions of refugees.
In Turkey, shocked survivors rushed out into the snow-covered streets in their pyjamas, watching rescuers dig through the debris of damaged homes.
“Seven members of my family are under the debris,” Muhittin Orakci, a stunned survivor in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, told AFP.
“My sister and her three children are there. And also her husband, her father-in-law and her mother-in-law.”
The rescue was being hampered by a winter blizzard that covered major roads in ice and snow.
The quake made three major airports in the area inoperable, further complicating deliveries of vital aid.
Kahramanmaras Governor Omer Faruk Coskun said: “It is not possible to give the number of dead and injured at the moment because so many buildings have been destroyed.”
Images on Turkish television showed rescuers digging through rubble across city centres and residential neighbourhoods of almost all the big cities running along the border with Syria.
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A famous mosque dating back to the 13th century partially collapsed in the province of Maltaya, where a 14-floor building with 28 apartments also collapsed.
In other cities, anguished rescuers struggled to reach survivors trapped under the debris.
“We hear voices here — and over there, too,” one rescuer was overheard as saying on NTV television in front of a flattened building in the city of Diyarbakir.
“There may be 200 people under the rubble.”
Turkey declared a state of emergency with 15,000 rescue personnel responding to the disaster.
Offers of help flooded in from around the world. Nations began sending rescuers and equipment within hours.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted: “My thoughts are with the people of Türkiye and Syria this morning, particularly with those first responders working so valiantly to save those trapped by the earthquake.
“The UK stands ready to help in whatever way we can.”
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington was “profoundly concerned”.
“We stand ready to provide any and all needed assistance,” Sullivan said.
Additional offers of help poured in from the European Union, Russia, Italy and Turkey’s historic rival Greece, whose relations with Ankara have suffered from a spate of border and cultural disputes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also offered to provide “the necessary assistance” to Turkey, whose combat drones are helping Kyiv fight the Russian invasion.
The quake was also felt in Lebanon and Syria and even as far as Cyprus and Cairo.
Lebanese were shaken from their sleep with many driving away from buildings as they swayed.
“I was writing something and just all of a sudden the entire building started shaking and yes I didn’t really know what to feel,” Mohamad El Chamaa, a student in the Lebanese capital Beirut, told the BBC.
“I was right next to the window so I was just scared that they might shatter.
“It went on for four to five minutes and it was pretty horrific. It was mind-blowing.”
In Turkey, people trying to leave the quake-stricken regions caused traffic jams, hampering efforts of emergency teams trying to reach the affected areas.
The country frequestly has warthquakes since it sits on top of major fault lines.
In 1999, more than 17,000 people were killed after a powerful tremor rocked the north-west of Turkey.
Turkey’s worst earthquake disaster was in 1939 when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province.
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Cheyenne R. Ubiera
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