Indefinite toll: the number of victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria exceeds 2,300

More than 2,300 people were killed in southern Turkey and northern Syria, where a strong 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck, followed a few hours later by another 7.5-magnitude earthquake, amid expectations that this final toll will rise, as a very large number of people are still under the rubble. Also, snowfall and low temperatures on Monday and Tuesday evening will make it difficult for people who have been displaced by the earthquake, as well as the efforts of rescuers.

Syria

In Syria, 810 people were killed and at least 2,315 others were injured as a result of the earthquake that hit it at dawn, centered in Turkey, according to the Syrian Ministry of Health and relief teams.

Most of the injuries were recorded in the governorates of Aleppo (north), Latakia (west), Hama (center) and Tartous (west).
SANA broadcast pictures showing great destruction in several cities, including Jableh and Lattakia, in which entire buildings collapsed, causing human losses and severe damage.

In the city of Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, which witnessed the ferocity of battles and bombing campaigns during the war years, SANA quoted a source in Aleppo governorate as at least 46 buildings collapsed, killing 156 people out of the total number of victims.

In the Al-Arbaeen neighborhood in the city of Hama, an eight-storey building collapsed, while rescue and ambulance teams were busy extracting the victims and the injured from under the rubble.

In the areas of northern Syria outside the control of Damascus, the White Helmets organization reported the death of 380 people and the injury of more than a thousand others.

The organization expected the death toll to rise, with hundreds of families under the rubble amid great difficulties and the need for heavy rescue equipment.

The organization counted the complete collapse of more than 133 buildings, and 272 partially, in addition to the cracking of thousands of buildings in northwestern Syria.

Turkey

The death toll from the two violent earthquakes that struck southeastern Turkey rose to 1,498 dead and at least 7,634 injured, according to data provided by an official of the Turkish General Authority for Disaster Management (AFAD).

The official stated that 2,834 buildings collapsed, which reinforces the fear of an increase in the death toll in Turkey, as this tremor is the largest in Turkey since the August 17, 1999 earthquake that killed 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul.

“We heard noises here and there. We think 200 people may be under the rubble,” said a rescue worker sent to a destroyed building in Diyarbakir.

Faced with this devastation, residents gather everywhere and try to remove the rubble with their own hands, using buckets.

To the south, a Byzantine fortress in Gaziantep built in the sixth century has partially collapsed.