Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria: the number of dead is increasing

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Rescue work in Diyarbakir, Turkey

Photo: REFIK TEKIN/EPA

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria overnight.

According to the current status, 1014 people died in Turkey alone.

This was announced by the civil protection service Afad on Monday afternoon.

More than 7000 people were injured.

Thousands of buildings collapsed as a result of the violent tremors in south-eastern Turkey alone.

Videos from several cities in the area showed partially completely destroyed streets.

Turkish television showed images of helpers, some of whom were bare-handed in the rubble looking for people who had been buried.

Erdogan spoke of the worst earthquake since 1939.

The walls of a historic castle in Gaziantep, built by the Romans in the 2nd century AD, collapsed into a gray heap of rubble.

Violent scenes take place at night at Gaziantep airport.

A video shows travelers with bags running out of a hall to the exit to the sound of sirens, with older people running after them in panic.

In Syria, the number of deaths has now risen to more than 780, according to Deputy Health Minister Ahmed Dhamirijeh and the White Helmets rescue organization.

More than 2,200 people were injured in the disaster in the civil war country.

Millions of refugees live in the Syrian areas affected by the disaster.

Several injured made their way to the completely overcrowded hospital in the city of Darkush in rebel-held north-western Syria.

bodies of children found

Darkush is located in Idlib province.

Many refugees live there under precarious conditions in camps.

Hundreds of people are believed to be missing under the rubble.

One injured person, Osama Abdelhamid, said most of his neighbors were dead. The four-storey apartment building where he lived collapsed while he and his family ran to the exit.

A wooden door fell on them and protected them like a shield.

"God gave me a new life," said Abdelhamid.

The bodies of several children were found in the small rebel-held town of Azmarin near the Turkish border.

Violent aftershocks

The 7.7-magnitude earthquake was followed by a number of aftershocks in both countries - according to Afad, one of them was 7.6-magnitude.

Both earthquakes had their epicenter in Kahramanmaras province.

The tremors were felt in several neighboring regional countries, including Lebanon, Iraq, Cyprus and Israel.

Bulgaria is sending rescue teams and relief supplies to Turkey.

It is about medical teams, 58 firefighters as well as technology and tents, as the Ministers of Defense and Interior, Dimitar Stoyanov and Ivan Demerdschiev, announced on Monday.

Two transport planes of the Bulgarian armed forces with helpers and goods on board took off from the capital Sofia in the direction of Adana in neighboring Turkey.

ala/dpa/AP