A violent earthquake took place in the south-east of Turkey overnight from Sunday to Monday.
The victims number in the hundreds, both dead and injured.
Le Parisien takes stock of the situation.
Where did the tremor occur?
At 4:17 a.m., or 2:17 a.m. Paris time, an earthquake broke out in the Pazarcik district, north of Gaziantep.
According to the USGS (United States Geological Survey), the magnitude was 7.8.
The depth of the tremor was almost 18 km, which is quite close to the surface.
The particularly strong power and the relatively shallow depth are two factors conducive to a heavy balance sheet.
The area concerned is located about fifty kilometers from the Syrian border.
The tremor was also strongly felt in this country but also in Lebanon and Cyprus.
USGS
About fifty aftershocks have already been recorded in Turkey.
The governor of Gaziantep province called on residents to gather outside despite the cold, while the head of Diyanet, the Turkish public body responsible for supervising worship, called on Turks in need to find refuge in the mosques.
What is the balance sheet?
The balance sheet is very scalable and continues to worsen.
First of a few victims, it quickly rose to several dozen deaths then several hundred.
The latest reports around 1,200 dead.
At least 326 people died in Syria and 912 in Turkey.
Hundreds more are injured and wanted in both countries.
Fuat Oktay, vice-president of Turkey, evokes the collapse of more than a thousand buildings.
He then fears a sharp increase in the number of victims.
70 dead were counted, 200 injured and 300 buildings collapsed in Maras, in the center-east of the country in the heart of Anatolia.
In Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, the toll stands at 80 dead, 600 injured and nearly 600 buildings collapsed.
In Iskenderun and Adiyaman, it was the public hospitals that collapsed under the effect of the earthquake.
Aleppo (Syria), Monday.
People watch as rescuers attempt to find survivors amid the ruins.
AFP AFP or licensors
In Syria, in areas controlled by rebels at war with Bashar al-Assad's regime, the death toll is at least 147.
Hundreds of people are also injured there.
The White Helmets, rescue workers who intervene in these areas, expect a sharp increase in this toll.
“Hundreds of families are under the rubble,” they insist.
Buildings collapsed near the border with Turkey in rebel-held areas.
Aleppo, the second largest city in the country and located in the north, Hama (center) and Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast, are among the most affected regions.
Request for help and international reactions
“All our teams are on alert.
We have issued a level four alarm.
It is a call, including for international help,” said Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.
Azerbaijan, a brother country of Turkey, has announced the immediate dispatch of 370 rescuers, according to the official Turkish Anadolu agency.
The European Union has also sent teams of rescuers to Turkey, announced the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic.
"We have activated the European Union's civil protection mechanism (...) Teams from the Netherlands and Romania are already on their way," he said.
The United States, France, Italy and Israel have said they are ready to do the same.
France is "ready to provide emergency aid to the populations" in Turkey and Syria after the violent earthquake which killed hundreds of people in the two countries, declared Emmanuel Macron.
“Terrible images come to us from Turkey and Syria after an earthquake of unprecedented force,” reacted the French president on Twitter.
“Our hearts go out to the bereaved families.
His message was also written in Turkish.
Görülmemiş şiddetteki bir deprem sonrasında Türkiye ve Suriye'den korkunç görüntüler alıyoruz.
Fransa, olay yerindeki nüfusa acil yardım sağlamaya hazırdır.
Kalbimiz, yaslı ailelerin yanındadır.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 6, 2023
Italy has offered Turkey the help of its Civil Protection.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is “constantly monitoring the situation”.
His head of diplomacy, Antonio Tajani, for his part said that he spoke on the phone with Mevlut Cavusoglu to "tell him of Italy's support".
Germany will send help, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.
“We follow, shocked, the news.
The death toll continues to rise.
We weep with the families and tremble for those buried.
Germany will of course send help, ”wrote the chancellor in a message on Twitter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his condolences and offered his help.
Collapsed buildings and castle
Both in Turkey and in Syria, many buildings have collapsed, and not necessarily immediately.
This video thus shows the case of a building in the Turkish town of Sanliurfa which collapsed several hours after the earthquake.
Kahramanmaraş'ta meydana gelen 7,4'lük deprem birçok ilde etkisini hissettirdi.
O illerden biri from Şanlıurfa'ydı.
Şanlıurfa'da dışarıdan bakıldığında sağlam gibi gözüken bir bina, gündüz saatlerinde saniyeler içinde çöktü.
O anlar anbean kameralar tarafından böyle görüntülendi pic.twitter.com/jgiDDGN3cP
— CNN TÜRK (@cnnturk) February 6, 2023
Gaziantep Castle was partially destroyed.
Built in the middle of the first millennium, it was renovated for the year 2000.
Tarihi Gaziantep Kalesi'nde yıkım: 7.4'lük depremde Gaziantep Kalesi'nin büyük bölümü yıkıldı https://t.co/1ACIpFS5lj pic.twitter.com/ACul7sB5Mo
— CNN TÜRK (@cnnturk) February 6, 2023
A very exposed area
This earthquake is the most important in Turkey since the earthquake of August 17, 1999, which caused the death of 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul.
Turkey is located on one of the most active seismic zones in the world.
At the end of November, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake hit the North West, injuring around fifty people and causing limited damage.
In January 2020, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake hit the provinces of Elazig and Malatya (East), killing more than 40 people.
In October of the same year, a magnitude 7 earthquake in the Aegean Sea killed 114 people and injured more than 1,000.
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