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“It rocked in all directions”: Southern Turkey and Syria mourn after a powerful earthquake

2023-02-06T09:50:08.832Z


TESTIMONIALS - The inhabitants were awakened by powerful earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 around 4 a.m. Monday. While rescuers are working in the rubble, the survivors find themselves homeless, under the snow.


Correspondent in Istanbul

After the shock, the emotion.

Suddenly awakened around 4 a.m. by a wave of powerful earthquakes, in southern Turkey, thousands of inhabitants find themselves homeless and under the snow.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed 284 people and injured at least 2,320 in Turkey, according to provisional data provided by Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay.

The images, relayed by television and on social networks, give an overview of the extent of the damage: buildings collapsed like houses of cards, panicked families taking refuge in parks, frantic quest for survivors.

Dispatched to the scene by the authorities, the rescue teams are busy trying to find survivors under the rubble.

"

Our primary mission is to carry out search and rescue operations, and for this all our teams are on alert

," Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters.

We hear the voices of victims here and there.

We think maybe 200 people are under the rubble

 “, confided in the early morning a rescuer dispatched in front of a destroyed building in Diyarbakir on the NTV channel.

“It lasted several seconds”

The Turkish city of Gaziantep was particularly affected.

“I felt my bed shaking.

I wanted to get up to take shelter, but it was rocking in all directions.

It lasted several seconds, but it felt like an eternity

 “, testifies Ahmet, a resident contacted by Le Figaro.

According to the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), the earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers, near the town of Kahramanmaras, sixty kilometers from the Syrian border.

The local relief management agency rated the tremor at a magnitude of 7.4.

This is, according to the local press, the largest earthquake since that of August 17, 1999, which caused the death of 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul.

Turkey is located in one of the most active seismic zones in the world.

Read alsoA new magnitude 5 earthquake shakes Guadeloupe

Felt throughout the southeast of the country, powerful tremors were also seen in Iraq, Cyprus and Lebanon.

Reached by telephone in Beirut, a tourist confides that she "

first believed in an attack

 " before realizing that the earth was moving.

But it is in Syria that the population seems to have been most affected.

In northern Syria, figures released by state media and rescue workers in the rebel zone on Monday morning show at least 386 dead and 988 injured, a provisional toll that is likely to worsen.

The news from Syria is terrifying and heartbreaking.

The infrastructure is already damaged by years of war and bombing.

We urgently need

 “Warns Dr. Khaula Sawah, president of the UOSSM-USA (Union of relief organizations and medical care).

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-02-06

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