Armenians among those killed in Turkey and Syria earthquake

PanARMENIAN.Net - A magnitude 7.8 earthquake has knocked down multiple buildings in southeast Turkey and northern Syria, Al Jazeera reports.

At least 284 deaths were reported in Turkey, while 237 people died in Syria. According to a report from Kantsasar, Syrian Armenians are among those killed on the quake.

The earthquake struck at 4:17am local time (01:17 GMT) on Monday, January 6, as people were sleeping, at a depth of about 17.9km (11 miles). It was also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon.

Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay said 284 people had been killed and 2,323 people were injured, as authorities scrambled rescue teams and supply aircraft to the affected area while declaring a “level 4 alarm” that calls for international assistance.

Footage on broadcaster CNNTurk showed severe damage to the historic Gaziantep Castle.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Twitter that “search and rescue teams were immediately dispatched” to the areas hit by the earthquake. He also spoke by telephone with the governors of eight affected provinces to gather information on the situation and rescue efforts, his office said in a statement.

Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu said there had been at least six aftershocks and urged people not to enter damaged buildings due to the risks.

“Our priority is to bring out people trapped under ruined buildings and to transfer them to hospitals,” he said.

Videos shared on social media showed buildings reduced to piles of rubble in several cities in Turkey’s southeast.

Broadcasters TRT and Haberturk showed images of people gathered around destroyed buildings in the town of Kahramanmaras, looking for survivors. Other images showed people taking shelter in their cars on the side of snow-covered roads.

In Syria, already devastated by more than 11 years of civil war, a government health official said more than 237 people had been killed and some 600 injured, most in the provinces of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia, where numerous buildings tumbled down.

“The situation is very tragic, tens of buildings have collapsed in the city of Salqin,” a member of the White Helmets rescue organisation said in a video clip on Twitter, referring to a town about 5 km (3 miles) from the Turkish border. Homes were “totally destroyed”, said the rescuer on the clip, which showed a street strewn with rubble.

President Bashar al-Assad was holding an emergency cabinet meeting to review the damage and discuss the next steps, his office said.

State television showed footage of rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and sleet. Health officials urged the public to help take the injured to emergency rooms.

“Wounded people are still arriving in waves,” Aleppo’s health director, Ziad Hage Taha, told Reuters news agency by telephone.