Thank you for reading our live blog coverage so far. We are closing this blog and will be continuing our rolling live news from Turkey and Syria in a new one, which you can find here.
Turkey’s disaster agency has raised the death toll from the earhtquake again, Reuters reports. In Turkey, the figures now stand at 6,234 killed.
The number of those injured there rose to 37,011, the agency said, adding that more than 79,000 personnel were engaged in search and rescue operations mo the Turkish side of the border.
With Syria’s death toll climbing to 2,470, the combined number of people killed in the disaster currently stands at 8,704, and is exopected to contiune to rise throughout the day.
This is Martin Belam in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
Updated
With that bit of good news, I’m handing over to my colleague Martin Belam.
This girl was rescued after being trapped for 40 hours in Salqin, Idlib:
Updated
Here are some of this morning’s photos:
Summary
I’m Helen Sullivan and if you’re just joining us, here is where things stand at the moment. If you’d like to get in touch, you can find me here. It is nearing 10am in Turkey.
The latest death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake stands at 8,364. On Wednesday morning, AFP reported that Syria’s toll had climbed to 2,470. At least 5,894 have died in Turkey, bringing the overall lives lost in both countries so far to 7,926. The numbers are expected to increase “significantly”, Syria’s White Helmets said.
More than 8,000 people so far have been pulled from the debris in Turkey, said the Turkish vice-president, Fuat Oktay. About 380,000 people have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, with others huddling in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.
On Tuesday afternoon, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared a disaster zone in the 10 provinces affected by the earthquakes, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed. The ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation.
Turkey has deployed more than 24,400 search and rescue personnel to the quake area. The number of personnel was expected to rise, disaster management agency official Orhan Tatar said.
Three British nationals are missing after the earthquake, the UK’s foreign secretary said on Tuesday. “We assess that the likelihood of large-scale British casualties remains low,” James Cleverly said.
Four Australians are unaccounted for following the earthquakes. Australia’s foreign affairs department is providing consular assistance to the families of the nationals who were where the catastrophe struck and to about 40 other Australians and their families who were also in the area.
Updated
Four Australians missing
Four Australians are unaccounted for following the earthquakes. Australia’s foreign affairs department is providing consular assistance to the families of the nationals who were where the catastrophe struck and to about 40 other Australians and their families who were also in the area.
“We’ve all seen the scenes of devastation, and the stories of human tragedy that we are witnessing,” foreign minister Penny Wong told the Senate on Wednesday.
“So, if we are able to assist, notwithstanding we are a long way away, I’m sure all of us would want the government to support our personnel to engage in such assistance.”
Updated
In Turkey, anger is mounting over what was described as a slow and inadequate response by authorities, the Guardian’s Ruth Michaelson and Sam Jones report:
Rescuers worked through the night on Wednesday, searching through the rubble of collapsed buildings, while freezing conditions, destroyed roads and poor infrastructure hindered the search in both countries.
Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, followed hours later by a second quake almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, injuring tens of thousands, leaving countless numbers homeless across Turkey and Syria.
Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. But residents in several damaged cities voiced anger and despair over the response by authorities to the deadliest earthquake to hit Turkey in decades.
“There is not even a single person here. We are under the snow, without a home, without anything,” Murat Alinak, whose home in Malatya collapsed and whose relatives are missing, told Reuters. “What shall I do, where can I go?”
Syria deaths rise to 2,470, bringing overall toll to nearly 8,400
The number of people confirmed dead in Syria stands at 2,470 AFP reports.
This brings the number of people confirmed dead from Turkey and Syria to 8,364. Turkey’s official toll remains unchanged for now at 5,894.
Updated
Summary
I’m Helen Sullivan and if you’re just joining us, here is where things stand at the moment. If you’d like to get in touch, you can find me here.
The latest death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake stands at 8,364. On Wednesday morning, AFP reported that Syria’s toll had climbed to 2,470. At least 5,894 have died in Turkey, bringing the overall lives lost in both countries so far to 7,926. The numbers are expected to increase “significantly”, Syria’s White Helmets said.
More than 8,000 people so far have been pulled from the debris in Turkey, said the Turkish vice-president, Fuat Oktay. About 380,000 people have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, with others huddling in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.
On Tuesday afternoon, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared a disaster zone in the 10 provinces affected by the earthquakes, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed. Turkey’s ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation.
Turkey has deployed more than 24,400 search and rescue personnel to the quake area. The number of personnel was expected to rise, disaster management agency official Orhan Tatar said.
Three British nationals are missing after the earthquake, the UK’s foreign secretary said on Tuesday. “We assess that the likelihood of large-scale British casualties remains low,” James Cleverly said.
Updated
This account of the earthquake from Syria, relayed to my colleague Mostafa Rachwani by Mohamad Kazmooz, is worth reading in full. Here is how it begins:
For the past two days, I have lived what has felt like an impossible nightmare.
At 4am on Monday, at our home in Idlib in north-west Syria, we were violently shaken awake by an extremely powerful earthquake.
It was a terror unlike any that I can describe, our home was shaking, our belongings were being tossed to the ground, screens were falling and shattering, pieces of the walls and chunks of the building collapsed.
In that moment, I did not think we would survive. I live with my wife and parents, and we were all violently woken up by this nightmare.
China’s earthquake rescue team, which has arrived in Turkey, is comprised of 82 members, brought 20 tonnes of medical and other rescue supplies and equipment, as well as four search-and-rescue dogs, according to CCTV.
The team will cooperate with the local government, the embassy in Turkey, the United Nations and other agencies on missions, including setting up a temporary command, carrying out personnel search and rescue and providing medical aid, CCTV said.
Separately, civil society rescue teams with at least 52 members from several provinces in China including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Guangdong are heading to the earthquake-stricken areas in Turkey to carry out the rescue work, CCTV reported.
China has already committed to give a first tranche of 40 million yuan ($5.9 million) in emergency aid to Turkey.
These satellite images released by Maxar Technologies give an idea of the scale of the challenge for emergency crews over the coming days. They show in vivid detail the breadth of the destruction that has unfolded in towns, cities and villages across the region:
A woman named Nurgul Atay told the Associated Press she could hear her mother’s voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province. But rescuers did not have the heavy equipment needed to rescue her.
“If only we could lift the concrete slab, we’d be able to reach her,” she said. “My mother is 70 years old, she won’t be able to withstand this for long.”
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 1,647 people were killed in Hatay alone, the highest toll of any Turkish province. At least 1,846 people had been rescued there as of Tuesday evening, he said. Hatay’s airport was closed after the quake destroyed the runway, complicating rescue efforts.
Here is a video of a man who appears to be part of a rescue crew offering a hard-working rescue dog some of his water, then freshening up his fur:
Rescue dog without sleep for 30 hours#PrayForTurkey #TurkeyEarthquake #earthquakeinturkey #turkey #TurkeyQuake #earthquaketurkey #HelpTurkey #Turcja #Turquie #Turquia #Turchia #earthquakeinsyria #Syria #Syrie #deprem pic.twitter.com/bjD0an9FGG
— Turkish Paramedic (@TRparamedic) February 7, 2023
Updated
“People revolted (on Tuesday) morning. The police had to intervene,” a man named Celal Deniz, 61, told AFP in Gaziantep. His brother and nephews remain trapped under rubble.
“Where have all our taxes gone, collected since 1999?”
He was referring to a levy dubbed “the earthquake tax” that was implemented after a massive earthquake destroyed large parts of northwestern Turkey and killed 17,400 people,
The revenues – now estimated to be worth 88bn liras, or $4.6bn – were meant to have been spent on disaster prevention and the development of emergency services.
But how this money was actually spent is not publicly known.
If there aren’t enough rescuers, volunteers say they will have to step in and do the hard work themselves.
Here is another scene reported by AFP, showing people’s anger at how long it has taken rescue teams to arrive:
With every passing moment, Ebru Firat knows the chances dim of finding her cousin alive under the rubble of a flattened building in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep.
And with that fading hope, the 23-year-old’s grief is being replaced by rage at the government’s earthquake response.
“I have no more tears left to cry,” she said.
Despite the importance of every minute, no rescue team arrived at the scene in the critical first 12 hours after the disaster, forcing victims’ relatives and local police to clear the ruins by hand, witnesses said.
And when the rescuers finally came on Monday evening, they only worked for a few hours before breaking for the night, residents told AFP.
Updated
Syria death toll passes 2,000
Syria’s White Helmets say that the death toll in rebel-held northwest Syria now stands at 1,220, from 1,000 a few hours ago.
With the 812 people confirmed dead in government-held areas, this brings the total known toll in Syria to 2032.
At least 5,894 have died in Turkey, bringing the overall lives lost in both countries so far to 7,926.
The numbers are expected to increase “significantly”, the White Helmets said.
⛔ Urgent: The death toll from the #earthquake in NW #Syria has risen to 1,220+ deaths and 2,600+ injured. The number is expected to rise significantly as hundreds of families remain under the rubble. Our teams continue search & rescue operations amid difficult circumstances. pic.twitter.com/JWRKjdzFco
— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) February 8, 2023
Updated
On Wednesday, Dave O’Neill, leader of a British emergency service rescue team, told AFP that the coming hours will be “absolutely critical” in the scramble through the quake debris.
“That is why we are so keen to get to work as fast as we can to make the most of the rescue window in front of us,” he said shortly after the 77-person British squad arrived at Gaziantep airport.
The team just wanted to “get out as quickly as possible,” he said.
“We have search teams and dogs. We need to get out there and establish our base and link up with the other teams.”
Updated
AFP has this report from Gaziantep’s airport, which has turned into a place for people to sleep amid a flurry of arrivals of rescuers from Turkey and around the world.
Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has warned the next 48 hours would be “crucial” in the hunt for survivors, with temperatures barely above freezing.
With survivors scared to return to their homes after the devastating 7.8 magnitude tremor, the airport has become a refuge for many.
About 100 people wrapped in blankets slept in one lounge of the terminal normally used to welcome Turkish politicians and celebrities.
Local authorities have banned people from staying in apartment blocks because of the many aftershocks hitting the region.
Mustafa Ehianci, a 20-year-old student, was among those huddled in the airport’s VIP lounge, with five other members of his family.
He said he had been asleep when the first tremor hit on Monday.
“It was like a bad dream, a roller coaster,” he recalled.
“We were waiting outside when the second quake struck a few hours later. Now we are all terrified,” Ehianci told AFP.
“We are sleeping here, eating here. We are safe in this area, there is electricity and sewage.
“I don’t know when we will leave.”
An earthquake rescue team dispatched by China’s government arrived in Turkey’s Adana Airport early on Wednesday, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday.
The team, comprised of 82 members, brought 20 tonnes of medical and other rescue supplies and equipment, as well as four search-and-rescue dogs, according to CCTV.
The team will cooperate with the local government, the embassy in Turkey, the United Nations and other agencies on missions, including setting up a temporary command, carrying out personnel search and rescue and providing medical aid, CCTV said.
A lot of bleak news today, so it’s worth taking a moment to watch this video made by Mexico’s rescue envoy of its four-legged team members:
El corazón de nuestro equipo de rescate volando en estos momentos hacia Turquía : pic.twitter.com/fl82LCdJ13
— Marcelo Ebrard C. (@m_ebrard) February 7, 2023
The United States has announced that it was sending two rescue teams to NATO ally Turkey. Allen said the teams would arrive Wednesday morning and head to the city of Adiyaman, where search efforts have so far been limited.
The teams, coming on two C-130 transport aircraft, are bringing 158 personnel, 12 dogs and 170,000 pounds (77,100 kilograms) of specialized equipment, he said.
“What we’re focused on right now in Turkey is getting those teams out and saving lives, to put it bluntly,” Allen said from Ankara.
“If they need further assistance when it comes to populations who may be without housing or need immediate assistance, we are certainly ready to provide that,” he said.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake has killed more than 7,100 people in the two countries, according to officials and medics.
More now on how the US is approaching aid to Syria, given its refusal to normalise relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or offer any direct reconstruction aid, seeking accountability for abuses during the brutal nearly 12-year civil war.
Assad has wrested back most of the country and over the past year has been restoring relations with other Arab nations as well as Turkey.
Stephen Allen, who is leading the response on the ground for the US Agency for International Development, said that most of the damage was in areas not under Assad’s control and that USAID had local partners there.
USAID is reorienting assistance that was already in place to help war-hit Syrians, instead focusing on rescue efforts and other immediate needs including providing shelter and food, Allen said.
“We’ve got the full gamut of humanitarian response going in northwest Syria right now,” Allen told reporters.
He declined to name the non-governmental groups working with the United States, citing operational security.
US says it is helping Syria but not Assad
The United States said Tuesday it was working with partners to provide earthquake relief in Syria but would stand firm against working with the Damascus government, AFP reports.
The United States also said it expected to send further assistance to Turkey after sending two rescue teams to the NATO ally, which suffered heavily as well in Sunday’s earthquake.
“In Syria itself we have US-funded humanitarian partners that are coordinating lifesaving assistance,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters as he met his Austrian counterpart.
“We’re committed to providing that assistance to help people in Syria recover from this disaster, just as we have been their leading humanitarian donor since the start of the war in Syria itself,” Blinken said.
“I want to emphasize here that these funds, of course, go to the Syrian people -- not to the regime. That won’t change.”
Updated
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent condolences to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, citing the North’s state media.
This aerial video from Reuters gives an idea of the scale of destruction in Hatay, Turkey, with entire multi-storey buildings lying collapsed in the roads.
The worst disaster in almost a century has impacted 13.5 million people in an area covering roughly 450 km. Resources are stretched thin. Latest death toll exceeds 5,400 people.
— Hümeyra Pamuk (@humeyra_pamuk) February 7, 2023
Below footage is from Hatay, among the hardest-hit provinces. pic.twitter.com/RJJvlWDE2l
On Tuesday in the town of Jinderis, in the opposition-held zone on the Syrian province of Idlib, a toddler was pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building. Video from the White Helmets, the emergency service in the region, shows a rescuer digging through crushed concrete amid twisted metal until the little girl, named Nour, appeared. The girl, still half buried, looks up dazedly as they tell her, “Dad is here, don’t be scared. … Talk to your dad, talk.”
A rescuer cradled her head in his hands and tenderly wiped dust from around her eyes before she was pulled out.
The quake has wreaked new devastation in the opposition-held zone, centered on the Syrian province of Idlib, which was already been battered by years of war and strained by the influx of displaced people from the country’s civil war, which began in 2011.
Monday’s earthquake killed hundreds across the area, and the toll was continually mounting with hundreds believed still lost under the rubble. The quake completely or partially toppled more than 730 buildings and damaged thousands more in the territory, according to the White Helmets, as the area’s civil defense is known.
The Economist has spoken to Ovgun Ahmet Ercan, an earthquake expert, who estimates that “180,000 people or more may be trapped under the rubble, nearly all of them dead.”
The Guardian has not independently verified this figure. The UN said yesterday that it feared the toll could reach 20,000, a staggering number and much lower than this estimate.
The Turkish provinces impacted by the quake are home to 13 million people.
For comparison, almost 230,000 people died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
17,000 died in the 1999 earthquake in Turkey.
According to some estimates, 180,000 people may be trapped under rubble in southern #Turkey -- alive & dead.
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) February 7, 2023
We've barely scratched the surface of the tragedy. https://t.co/Rzhk1ep2Oi pic.twitter.com/V8dv6Tsj7Y
Updated
Reuters has this short story of a single Hatay street almost totally levelled by the earthquakes:
Street no. 21 in Hatay, Turkey was, on Sunday, a happy home for dozens of families.
By Monday, there was hardly anything left of it.
Hardly a building was left standing. Doors, roofs and windows lay scattered. Injured people were pulled out of the remains of what once were homes. Many people stood in silence, staring in disbelief.
“Words are sticking in my throat. Crying is no longer a remedy,” said Halil Gencoglu on Tuesday, fighting back tears.
Abdulkadir Dogan had already lost his parents in the earthquake and was still hoping to find his cousin alive.
“We want to rescue our wives, relatives and friends who are stuck. They are our priority because we are trying to cling to life with them... My cousin is stranded there and I am here and I can do nothing,” he said.
A short while ago, a two-year-old girl and her mother were rescued after 44 hours trapped under rubble in Hatay, Turkey.
This is a very brave Vafe Sabha:
Hi, my name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest from Turkey and Syria for the next few hours.
If you have questions, news you think we may have missed or just want to get in touch, you’ll find me on Twitter here.
Updated
A summary of today's developments
The latest death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake has passed 7,800. In Turkey, 5,894 people are confirmed to have been killed, while 1,932 people have died in Syria for a combined total of 7,826 fatalities.
As the scale of the devastation from the 7.8 magnitude tremor continued to unfold, the World Health Organization warned the number of casualties could exceed 20,000. Initial rescue efforts were stalled by a second quake on Monday that measured 7.7 magnitude. Adelheid Marschang, a WHO senior emergency officer, has said about 23 million people, including 1.4 million children, are likely to be affected by the quake.
More than 8,000 people so far have been pulled from the debris in Turkey, said the Turkish vice-president, Fuat Oktay. About 380,000 people have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, with others huddling in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.
Tuesday afternoon, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared a disaster zone for the 10 provinces affected by the devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed. Turkey’s ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation.
Turkey has deployed more than 24,400 search and rescue personnel to the quake area. The number of personnel was expected to rise with the arrival of additional people, disaster management agency official Orhan Tatar said.
Three British nationals are missing following the earthquake that struck south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, the UK’s foreign secretary said on Tuesday. “We assess that the likelihood of large-scale British casualties remains low,” James Cleverly said.
A plane carrying 77 UK search and rescue specialists, state-of-the-art equipment and four search dogs has landed in Gaziantep in south-east Turkey, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said. The team, made up of firefighters and staff from 14 fire and rescue services from across the country, will cut their way into buildings and help locate survivors in the rubble of the earthquakes.
At least 20 people have escaped from a jail holding members of Islamic State (IS) in north-west Syria in the aftermath of yesterday’s earthquakes, according to local media and Agence France-Presse. The military police prison in the town of Rajo, near the Turkish border, was damaged in the quakes and aftershocks, a source at the facility said, leading to a riot and escapes.
Aid from Turkey to north-west Syria has temporarily stopped due to the fallout of the devastating earthquake, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday, leaving aid workers grappling with the problem of how to help people in a country fractured by war.
Syria was accused of playing politics with aid after the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, said his country should be responsible for the delivery of all aid into Syria, including those areas not under Syrian government control. The dispute over the control of the aid is hampering efforts into northern Syria, which is held by rebel groups. The government in Damascus allows aid to enter the region through only one border crossing.
The UN’s cultural agency Unesco said on Tuesday it was ready to provide assistance after two sites listed on its world heritage list in Syria and Turkey sustained damage in the devastating earthquake. As well as the damage to the old city of Syria’s Aleppo and the fortress in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır, Unesco said at least three other world heritage sites could be affected.
A newborn baby girl has been pulled alive from the rubble of a home in northern Syria, after relatives found her still tied by her umbilical cord to her mother, who died in Monday’s massive earthquake.
The infant is the sole survivor of her immediate family, the rest of whom were all killed when the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Syria and neighbouring Turkey flattened the family home in the rebel-held town of Jindayris, said relative Khalil al-Suwadi.
“We heard a voice while we were digging,” Suwadi told AFP on Tuesday.
“We cleared the dust and found the baby with the umbilical cord (intact) so we cut it and my cousin took her to hospital.”
Death toll passes 7,800
The latest death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake has passed 7,800.
In Turkey, 5,894 people are confirmed to have been killed, while 1,932 people have died in Syria for a combined total of 7,826 fatalities. There are fears that the toll will rise inexorably, with World Health Organization officials estimating up to 20,000 may have died.
Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region has said it has resumed oil exports through Turkey, after suspending them as a precaution following Monday’s deadly earthquake.
“At 9:45 pm (1845 GMT) the Kurdistan region’s oil exports resumed via the pipeline connecting the area with Turkey,” the Kurdish ministry of natural resources said in a statement.
The northern region usually exports around 450,000 barrels of oil a day through Turkey, and has continued to pump oil out of the country despite the federal authorities demanding a halt to the trade.
On one side of Syria’s civil war, a man in army fatigues carried a lifeless child’s ashen body from the rubble of a shattered building in the government-held city of Hama.
Across a frontline on another side of Syria, a rescue worker in the white helmet and black-yellow vest of the Syrian civil defence carried a young girl - shaken but alive - from the rubble of her home in rebel-held Azaz.
Both witnessed by Reuters journalists, the scenes that unfolded in the hours after an earthquake devastated Syria and Turkey on Monday were similar, though the uniforms clearly located the rescuers on opposing sides of the conflict that has splintered the country.
“The earthquake shook opposition held and regime-held areas, and I support the Syrian revolution with all my heart, but I care for my people,” Ramadan Suleiman, 28, said by phone, expressing sympathy for civilians living in government areas.
“I’m a human, they’re human, we felt for those in Turkey and feel the same when it happens in other places like Europe. That’s humanity,” said Suleiman, who was displaced to Idlib from Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria during the war.
“This is the last thing that the country needed. It’s a country that is inhabited by death,” said Hassan Hussein, from the coastal city and government stronghold of Tartous.
Three British nationals remain missing following the earthquake. Foreign secretary James Cleverley said the department’s Crisis Response Hub is working to support at least 35 Britons caught up in the disaster.
He added: “We assess that the likelihood of large-scale British casualties remains low.”
A number of relief organisations have urged the public to dig deep and donate, saying the help they are able to provide over the next few days “will save lives”.
James Denselow, UK head of conflict and humanitarian advocacy for Save the Children UK, told the PA news agency: “The scale of this earthquake, in terms of not just strength but the kind of actual absolute sprawl of it has meant that we’ve had to spend a lot of time in this first phase checking in on needs, checking in on what is working logistically, checking that all our people are OK.
“Because you’ve got airports out of action, hospitals collapsed, clinics collapsed, all the sort of places we would normally use are not necessarily accessible.”
Two US Agency for International Development teams will arrive Wednesday morning in Turkey and will head to the southeastern province of Adiyaman to focus on urban search and rescue following earthquakes that killed more than 6,300 people and left a trail of destruction in Turkey and neighboring Syria.
USAID’s disaster assistance response team leader for the earthquake response, Stephen Allen, told reporters on Tuesday the teams will be about 80 people each and also bring 12 dogs and 170,000 pounds of specialised tools and equipment, including for triage and concrete breaking, Reuters reports.
The U.S. military aircraft carrying the teams and equipment were to land at Incirlik Air Base in the southern Turkish province of Adana and deploy immediately to hard-hit urban centers to save as many people as possible, Allen said.
“They really do work 24/7, they work in shifts, they go around the clock, because every hour does count in the first few days,” Allen said.
Updated
The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, “pledged the UK’s steadfast support” to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a phone call following a devastating earthquake affecting the Turkish president’s country and neighbouring Syria, No 10 said.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “Prime minister, Rishi Sunak, spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan this afternoon, following the devastating earthquakes which struck Turkiye (Turkey) and Syria.
“He expressed his deep condolences for the tragic loss of life and pledged the UK’s steadfast support.
“The prime minister confirmed that a 77-strong British search and rescue team arrived in Gaziantep today with specialist equipment and dogs, in response to a request from the Turkish government, and will immediately start work assisting with the rescue effort.
“President Erdogan thanked the prime minister for the UK’s solidarity in response to this tragedy and welcomed international search and rescue and medical support for the initial emergency response.
“The prime minister also noted the deeply concerning humanitarian situation over the border in north-west Syria, where Turkiye plays an important co-ordinating role, and set out how the UK has increased support to aid organisations and emergency responders.”
Updated
German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, promised Turkish president Tayyip Erdoğan further comprehensive support in dealing with the earthquake disaster, a spokesman for the German government said after the two leaders spoke on the phone.
Updated
Earthquake death toll surpasses 7,200
The number of people who have died in Turkey and Syria has risen to 7,266.
It comes after the Turkish health minister confirmed 5,434 people were killed in the country alone.
On the edge of Göksun, empty buildings with their walls ripped open showed the power of the earthquake that devastated the town just a day earlier. Icicles dangled from cracked walls, where the force of the quake had torn homes open to reveal their contents, exposing the tiles and chairs that used to be a kitchen and now were left open to the freezing air. Elsewhere, whole houses had been turned to rubble.
On Tuesday Göksun was a ghost town, just over 70 miles from the centre of the deadly earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people in Turkey and Syria and has left untold numbers trapped under the rubble.
Most residents of Göksun had fled in the aftermath, as powerful aftershocks continued to shake their homes. Those who stayed were struggling to survive in temperatures that dropped well below zero, sheltering in their cars or around makeshift campfires and struggling to find water and food, fearing further tremors.
King Charles has told President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that his “thoughts and special prayers” are with all those affected by the earthquakes in Turkey.
He said: “My wife and I have been most shocked and profoundly saddened by the news of the devastating earthquakes in South East Turkiye (Turkey).
I can only begin to imagine the scale of suffering and loss as a result of these dreadful tragedies and I particularly wanted to convey our deepest and most heartfelt sympathy to the families of all those who have lost their loved ones.
“Our thoughts and special prayers are with everyone who has been affected by this appalling natural disaster, whether through injury or the destruction of their property, and also with the emergency services and those assisting in the rescue efforts.”
Updated
A plane carrying 77 UK search and rescue specialists, state-of-the-art equipment and four search dogs has landed in Gaziantep in south-east Turkey, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.
The team, made up of firefighters and staff from 14 fire and rescue services from across the country, will cut their way into buildings and help locate survivors in the rubble of the earthquakes.
Their specialist equipment includes seismic listening devices, concrete cutting and breaking equipment and propping and shoring tools.
An emergency medical team was also on the flight and will conduct a full assessment of the situation on the ground, according to the FCDO.
Aftershocks, freezing temperatures and damaged roads are hampering efforts to tackle the enormous humanitarian emergency triggered by Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake in southern Turkey and northern Syria, which has now killed more than 6,200 people and left 380,000 others seeking refuge in Turkey alone, writes Ruth Michaelson and Sam Jones.
As the scale of the devastation from the initial quake – and a second, 7.7-magnitude tremor – became clearer, the Turkish authorities declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces and the World Health Organization warned that the number of fatalities could exceed 20,000.
By Tuesday evening, the death toll in Turkey and Syria had passed 6,200. Turkey’s emergency management agency said more than 4,500 people had died and around 26,000 had been injured.
The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed past 800, with some 1,400 injured, according to the health ministry. In the rebel-held northwest of Syria, the White Helmets emergency rescue organisation said at least 900 people had died and more than 2,300 had been hurt.
The ancient citadel of Aleppo suffered further damage in the earthquake that ravaged southern Turkey and northern Syria, a local architect and the Syrian antiquities directorate said.
On Tuesday a pile of rubble near the citadel was all that was left of a structure identified by local architect Mohammed al-Rifaei as the “sheep tower”, which he said had stood there until the devastating early morning quake.
“We had repeatedly asked for the restoration of the tower, but now it needs to be rebuilt from scratch,” Rifaei said.
Syria’s Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums said parts of the citadel had suffered minor to moderate damage.
Parts of an Ottoman-era mill had collapsed, walls had cracked and some of the dome of a mosque’s minaret had fallen off, Reuters reports.
The citadel, listed by the UN cultural agency Unesco as a world heritage site, was significantly damaged in a long-running battle between government and rebel forces before it reopened in 2018.
Updated
Syrian foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, has asked European countries to send aid following the earthquake, saying that sanctions are no excuse not to, he told Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV on Tuesday.
Syrian officials have long argued that western sanctions have harmed reconstruction efforts in areas where the 12-year conflict has subsided, Reuters reports.
The US and European nations have said that sanctions aim to pressure the Syrian government into a political process that could end the conflict.
Updated
A 20-year-old student survived the earthquake in Turkey after posting a video to social media from underneath the rubble.
Updated
Death toll in earthquake reaches 6,000
The death toll has reached 6,000 with the search for survivors ongoing, according to the Associated Press.
Updated
The Turkish defence ministry says the fire at Iskenderun Port on the Mediterranean Sea has been extinguished, Reuters reports.
After the earthquake struck on Monday, images and videos showed burning containers and thick black smoke rising overhead.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Syria and Turkey.
Authorities in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus have confirmed that reports of a group of high school students being rescued from the rubble of a hotel in the southeastern city of Adiyaman are incorrect.
“I have just spoken to the mother of one of them and can confirm that neither her child nor any other has been found,” Sener Elcil, former head of the breakaway state’s teachers union told the Guardian. Members of a school volleyball team, the students were in the city to compete in a tournament when the devastating earthquake struck.
“While some educators and the parents who were with them managed to escape the hotel, the children were trapped and no one has so far been pulled out of the building,” he said.
Sener, who headed the union until last year and is helping coordinate rescue efforts with the school, said other groups of Turkish Cypriot school children were also in Turkey when the 7.8- magnitude quake hit “which explains the confusion.” The territory, which has only been recognised by Ankara since declaring independence in 1983, has strong ties with Turkey.
“One of the groups [also staying in Adiyaman] managed to come back but is not the volleyball group,” he added. “Today we sent [mobile phone] power banks and coats to the teachers and parents who got out of the hotel because the temperatures are freezing and they had no way of communicating with us. They have stayed on because they want to help in the rescue efforts.”
Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tartar, who has had oversight of the rescue efforts, has reportedly dispatched a 100-strong rescue team to the hotel and has vowed to follow up with new missions daily in a bid to help overstretched rescue operations currently underway.
The island’s outgoing president Nicos Anastasiades tweeted today that Cyprus was ready to “contribute and offer our assistance to the humanitarian, rescue and recovery efforts.” Foreign ministry officials said the offer had been rebuffed by Turkey. In the wake of the 1974 Turkish invasion, following a right-wing coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece, Ankara has refused to extend diplomatic recognition to Cyprus.
We have removed a previous post which said that the 24 junior Turkish Cypriot high school students were found because it was later found to be incorrect.
Updated
Reuters reports that Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spoke with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call to offer condolences and support after the deadly earthquake, Egypt’s presidency said in a statement on Tuesday.
Summary of the day so far …
It is quarter past 7pm in Ankara and Damascus. Here is a summary of the latest situation in Turkey and Syria after yesterday’s earthquake and aftershocks.
Aftershocks, freezing temperatures and damaged roads are hampering efforts to reach and rescue those affected by Monday’s earthquake in southern Turkey and northern Syria, which has killed more than 5,000 people and destroyed thousands of buildings.
As the scale of the devastation from the 7.8 magnitude tremor continued to unfold, the World Health Organization warned the number of casualties could exceed 20,000. Initial rescue efforts were stalled by a second quake on Monday that measured 7.7 magnitude. Adelheid Marschang, a WHO senior emergency officer, has said about 23 million people, including 1.4 million children, are likely to be affected by the quake.
The number of confirmed deaths in both Turkey and Syria now stands at 5,261, with the expectation that numbers will continue to rise, according to Reuters. The death toll in the rebel-held north-west of Syria has been raised to 900.
More than 8,000 people so far have been pulled from the debris in Turkey, said the Turkish vice-president, Fuat Oktay. About 380,000 people have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, with others huddling in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.
Tuesday afternoon, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared a disaster zone for the 10 provinces affected by the devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed. Turkey’s ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation.
Turkey has deployed more than 24,400 search and rescue personnel to the quake area. The number of personnel was expected to rise with the arrival of additional people, disaster management agency official Orhan Tatar said.
Three British nationals are missing following the earthquake that struck south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, the UK’s foreign secretary said on Tuesday. “We assess that the likelihood of large-scale British casualties remains low,” James Cleverly said.
At least 20 people have escaped from a jail holding members of Islamic State (IS) in north-west Syria in the aftermath of yesterday’s earthquakes, according to local media and Agence France-Presse. The military police prison in the town of Rajo, near the Turkish border, was damaged in the quakes and aftershocks, a source at the facility said, leading to a riot and escapes.
Aid from Turkey to north-west Syria has temporarily stopped due to the fallout of the devastating earthquake, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday, leaving aid workers grappling with the problem of how to help people in a country fractured by war.
Syria was accused of playing politics with aid after the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, said his country should be responsible for the delivery of all aid into Syria, including those areas not under Syrian government control. The dispute over the control of the aid is hampering efforts into northern Syria, which is held by rebel groups. The government in Damascus allows aid to enter the region through only one border crossing.
The UN’s cultural agency Unesco said on Tuesday it was ready to provide assistance after two sites listed on its world heritage list in Syria and Turkey sustained damage in the devastating earthquake. As well as the damage to the old city of Syria’s Aleppo and the fortress in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır, Unesco said at least three other world heritage sites could be affected.
A fire at the port of İskenderun on the Mediterranean Sea continues for the second day. Television images showed thick black smoke rising from burning containers which had toppled when the quake struck on Monday.
Police in Turkey said on Tuesday they had detained four people over “provocative” social media posts. The four individuals were detained after officers found accounts that shared “provocative posts aiming to create fear and panic”, the police said.
Updated
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said his government was working to send support to those affected by the “incredibly tragic situation” in Turkey and Syria “as quickly as possible”.
Sunak said:
It’s obviously an incredibly tragic situation that we’re all seeing in Turkey and Syria. I want everyone to know that we are doing what we can to provide support, we are in touch with the authorities in both Syria and Turkey.
The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, told MPs he had already authorised the deployment of a medical assessment team to respond to the earthquake, adding:
The further stages of requirement will evolve over time, we will of course work closely with our international partners to make sure we address that.
Updated
Videos and photographs of the two earthquakes that have devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria, killing at least 5,000 people, show rescuers digging with their hands, apartment blocks collapsing to the ground in seconds, and the shaking apart of a castle that had stood for almost two millennia.
But few images depict the agony quite as plainly as a photograph from the Turkish region of Kahramanmaraş, in which a father holds the hand of his dead teenage daughter as rescuers and civilians pick through the flattened building where she died on Monday.
Read more here:
Updated
BJ Richardson, 45, a US citizen who works as a teacher in Gaziantep, near the epicentre of the earthquake in Turkey, tells Jedidajah Otte his experience of the situation unfolding on the ground.
We are all in shock. I walked through a small area of Gaziantep on Tuesday morning. Damage is everywhere – cracked buildings, plaster, broken glass, some buildings have fallen. Each of these buildings represents hundreds of people who are now homeless.
I saw dozens of cars with people or even whole families sleeping in them. Temperatures were freezing last night, below 30F [-1C]. Their batteries, their gas, it will not last.
I’m American and have been living and teaching in Gaziantep for the past seven years.
I woke up at 4.17am when the first earthquake hit. We do get occasional earthquakes but this one was clearly many orders of magnitude worse. And it just did not stop.
I live on the third floor of an old five-storey concrete building, and I was expecting it to collapse. My windows were shoved open, and I could hear glass shattering in the hall as people came running out of their apartments and outside, pretty much as soon as they could, which was not the wisest thing to do, but – you panic.
Read more here:
Aid from Turkey to north-west Syria has temporarily stopped due to the fallout of the devastating earthquake, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday, leaving aid workers grappling with the problem of how to help people in a country fractured by war.
The cross-border aid operation overseen by the UN since 2014 has been crucial to Syrians who fled President Bashar al-Assad’s rule during the conflict, bypassing the territory he controls.
Now, however, there is no clear picture of when the aid, on which some 4 million people depend, would resume, Madevi Sun-Suon, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA), told Reuters.
Sun-Suon said:
Some roads are broken, some are inaccessible. There are logistical issues that need to be worked through. We are exploring all avenues to reach people in need.
One avenue includes delivering aid via government-held territory, a process involving crossing frontlines through which aid has seldom passed during the war. Damascus has long opposed the humanitarian operation that has delivered aid into Syria from Turkey, saying assistance should be delivered via Damascus.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Syria and Turkey.
Updated
Reuters has a quick snap to say that the death toll in the rebel-held north-west of Syria has been raised to 900.
Earlier today it was given as 790, with a warning that it would “dramatically” rise.
The total death toll in both Turkey and Syria now stands at 5,261, with the expectation that numbers will continue to rise.
Updated
At least 20 people have escaped from a jail holding members of Islamic State (IS) in north-west Syria in the aftermath of yesterday’s earthquakes, according to local media and Agence France-Presse.
The military police prison in the town of Rajo, near the Turkish border, was damaged in the quakes and aftershocks, a source at the facility said, leading to a riot and escapes.
The jail, run by Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters, houses about 2,000 inmates. About 1,300 are suspected IS fighters, and most of the rest of the population are suspected to be members of the US-backed Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). All 20 who escaped were believed to be IS, the source told AFP.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said it could not verify whether prisoners had escaped, but confirmed there was a mutiny in which guards lost control of parts of the prison.
Most suspected members of IS captured in Syria are held in facilities under the oversight of Kurdish forces in Syria’s north-east, which was not as badly affected by Monday’s deadly earthquake and aftershocks. There have been a number of attempted outbreaks in the past, but most have been unsuccessful.
The group lost control of the last slivers of its territory across Syria and Iraq in 2019 after a five-year US-led fight to destroy the jihadists’ “caliphate”. Cells affiliated to IS have continued to operate since in both countries.
Updated
At least 8,000 people rescued from debris in Turkey with 380,000 taking refuge in shelters
More than 8,000 people so far have been pulled from the debris in Turkey, said the Turkish vice-president, Fuat Oktay. About 380,000 people have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, with others huddling in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.
Associated Press reports that many people have posted to social media to plead for assistance for loved ones believed to be trapped under rubble, with Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency quoting interior ministry officials as saying that all calls were being “collected meticulously” and the information relayed to search teams.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said 13 million people among the country’s population of 85 million were affected in some way. He has declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces in order to manage the response. Turkey said it would only allow vehicles carrying aid to enter the worst-hit provinces of Kahramanmaraş, Adıyaman and Hatay in order to speed the effort.
Turkey has large numbers of troops in the border region with Syria and has tasked the military to aid in the rescue efforts, including setting up tents for the homeless and a field hospital in Hatay province. The defence minister, Hulusi Akar, said a humanitarian aid brigade based in Ankara and eight military search and rescue teams had also been deployed.
Updated
UK for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has launched an urgent appeal in response to earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
In a press release it said that in Syria the organisation was already distributing emergency supplies, such as high-thermal blankets, mattresses and other lifesaving items, and was working to mobilise additional supplies for the region.
Emma Cherniavsky, chief executive of UK for UNHCR, said: “Thousands of people’s lives were devastated in one night when the first of these terrible earthquakes struck. Many families who had previously fled from conflict in Syria were already struggling to cope with the cold winter, and now are facing this new crisis.
“UNHCR is already working to help people affected by these earthquakes and assessing what more needs to be done. Every donation will help us to deliver essential aid to the people affected.”
The appeal can be found here.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from Syria and Turkey.
Qatar has been preparing a shipment of aid at Al Udeid airbase. The country said it would send 120 rescue workers to Turkey, alongside “a field hospital, relief aid, tents and winter supplies.”
Earlier, during a televised address Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan thanked Qatar for offering 10,000 container homes for people left homeless.
The southern Turkish port of Iskenderun has suffered severe structural damage due to an earthquake, with all operations halted until further notice, the container shipping firm AP Moller Maersk said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports that Maersk said in an advisory that it was not yet clear when the port would return to normal operations.
“Given the situation at Iskenderun, we will need to perform a change of destination for all bookings bound for the port or already on the water,” it said.
“We are currently planning to divert containers to nearby hubs within operational feasibility or hold at transshipment ports – including the Port of Mersin [in Turkey] and Port Said [in Egypt].”
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
A fire has been burning in the post since yesterday, when containers that had been dislodged by the quake broke into flames.
Updated
Andrew Lee, professor of public health at the University of Sheffield, has commented on the complexity involved in mounting search and rescue operations, saying: “Earthquake disasters are complex emergencies, with widespread impacts on society, infrastructure, local economies, health, education and other sectors.
“The full scale of the disaster will not be clear for a few days yet, and the total number of casualties will probably increase. The risk of further aftershocks remains, and damaged buildings pose a further hazard.
“The consequences are not just short term but are also longer term, such as through mental health effects (eg post-traumatic stress disorder) and the need for rehabilitation for those disabled by earthquake related injuries. The recovery from such disasters often takes many months and years afterwards.”
Lee makes an important additional point: “What we see in the media is only a small snapshot, and we usually won’t see affected populations and areas away from the major urban centres that media teams don’t get to.”
It will be particularly challenging to report from the north-west of Syria for example, and the World Health Organization has today again warned that it is concerned about the regions where little news has filtered back through.
Updated
Thousands of children may be among dead – Unicef
In Geneva, Unicef spokesperson James Elder has told reporters: “The earthquakes … may have killed thousands of children.”
While verified numbers were not yet available, Reuters reports he said “we know that scores of schools, hospitals and other medical and educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed by the quakes, vastly impacting children”.
Calling the quake the most powerful to hit the region in almost 100 years, Elder said Syrian refugees in northwest Syrian and in Turkey were among the most vulnerable.
The World Health Organisation had earlier warned that the total casualty figures could exceed 20,000. A quake of a similar magnitude in the region in 1999 killed at least 17,000 people.
Three British nationals are missing following the earthquake that struck south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, the UK’s foreign secretary has said.
Making a statement in the House of Commons in London, James Cleverly said: “As of this morning, we know that three British nationals are missing and the Foreign Office’s Crisis Response Hub is working to support the at least 35 British nationals who have been directly affected by these earthquakes.
“We assess that the likelihood of large-scale British casualties remains low.”
Updated
Armenia’s foreign minister says his country has offered to help Syria and Turkey in their response to the deadly quake, despite difficult relations between Yerevan and Ankara.
Associated Press reports Ararat Mirzoyan told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday that Armenia is prepared to send aid and rescue teams to both countries, but did not immediately say whether the offers had been accepted.
Mirzoyan recalled that Armenia experienced a devastating earthquake in 1988 and required international assistance at the time.
Updated
Reuters reports that Turkish authorities say about 13.5 million people have been affected by the quake.
It says the impact has been felt in an area spanning roughly 450 km (280 miles) from Adana in the west to Diyarbakır in the east, and 300 km (185 miles) from Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south. Syrian authorities have reported deaths as far south as Hama, about 100 km (60 miles) from the epicentre of Monday’s early morning quake.
Updated
Erdoğan imposes three-month state of emergency on 10 Turkish provinces affected by quake
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has declared as a disaster zone the 10 provinces affected by the devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.
In a speech, Reuters reports that the Turkish president said on Tuesday that 70 countries had offered help in search and rescue operations and that Turkey planned to open up hotels in the tourism hub of Antalya, to the west, to temporarily house people affected.
He said the death toll in Turkey had risen to 3,549 people, raising the combined death toll in Turkey and Syria to 5,151.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
It is 3pm in Ankara and Damascus. Here is a summary of the latest situation in Turkey and Syria after yesterday’s earthquake and aftershocks.
Aftershocks, freezing temperatures and damaged roads are hampering efforts to reach and rescue those affected by Monday’s earthquake in southern Turkey and northern Syria, which has killed more than 5,000 people and destroyed thousands of buildings.
As the scale of the devastation from the 7.8 magnitude tremor continued to unfold, the World Health Organization warned the number of casualties could exceed 20,000. Initial rescue efforts were stalled by a second quake on Monday that measured 7.7 magnitude. Adelheid Marschang, a WHO senior emergency officer, has said about 23 million people, including 1.4 million children, are likely to be affected by the quake.
On Tuesday morning, Turkey’s vice-president, Fuat Oktay, said 3,419 people had been killed in the quake, with another 20,534 had been injured. The number of confirmed deaths in Syria rose to 1,602, bringing the death toll in both countries to 5,021.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed. Turkey’s ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation.
Turkey has deployed more than 24,400 search and rescue personnel to the quake area. The number of personnel was expected to rise with the arrival of additional people, disaster management agency official Orhan Tatar said.
Syria was accused of playing politics with aid after the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, said his country should be responsible for the delivery of all aid into Syria, including those areas not under Syrian government control. The dispute over the control of the aid is hampering efforts into northern Syria, which is held by rebel groups. The government in Damascus allows aid to enter the region through only one border crossing.
The UN’s cultural agency Unesco said on Tuesday it was ready to provide assistance after two sites listed on its world heritage list in Syria and Turkey sustained damage in the devastating earthquake. As well as the damage to the old city of Syria’s Aleppo and the fortress in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır, Unesco said at least three other world heritage sites could be affected.
A fire at the port of İskenderun on the Mediterranean Sea continues for the second day. Television images showed thick black smoke rising from burning containers which had toppled when the quake struck on Monday
Police in Turkey said on Tuesday they had detained four people over “provocative” social media posts. The four individuals were detained after officers found accounts that shared “provocative posts aiming to create fear and panic”, the police said.
Updated
The BBC reports Turkey’s ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation.
Updated
The UN’s cultural agency Unesco said on Tuesday it was ready to provide assistance after two sites listed on its world heritage list in Syria and Turkey sustained damage in the devastating earthquake.
As well as the damage to the old city of Syria’s Aleppo and the fortress in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakır, Unesco said at least three other world heritage sites could be affected.
“Our organisation will provide assistance within its mandate,” Agence France-Presse reports the Unesco director general, Audrey Azoulay, as having said.
A statement from Unesco said it was “particularly concerned” about the old city of Aleppo, which has been on its list of world heritage in Danger since 2013 due to the Syrian civil war.
“Significant damage has been noted in the citadel. The western tower of the old city wall has collapsed and several buildings in the souks have been weakened,” it said.
In Turkey, Unesco said it was saddened by the “collapse of several buildings” at the world heritage site of the Diyarbakır fortress and the adjacent Hevsel gardens.
It emphasised that the entire area was an important centre of the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman periods.
Updated
Turkish and Kurdish communities in Germany have launched donation drives to send money, warm clothes and blankets to victims of the earthquake, Reuters reports.
As news of the disaster spread and sparked frantic appeals for help, volunteers began collecting aid in Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich for the thousands left injured or homeless after their homes were destroyed.
Germany has about 2.3 million people of Turkish origin, the largest Turkish diaspora community in the world, according to the Turkish Community in Germany.
Levent Cukur has coordinated an aid drive in the boxing gym he runs in Munich. “We didn’t expect it to go this crazy, it’s mad. We thought we would fill two vans and then send them off but it hasn’t stopped since 10 this morning.”
As he spoke, a group of people were loading boxes of donations onto trucks. The first batch is scheduled to leave for Turkey on Thursday.
“It is currently very cold in the affected regions and people urgently need blankets, warm clothing and boots,” said Tunca Karakas, a member of cultural association Tuerkisch-Deutscher Kreis.
Updated
There is a little bit more detail on the status of Ghanaian football Christian Atsu. The vice-president of Hatayspor where Atsu plays said “Christian Atsu was pulled out injured. Our sporting director, Taner Savut, is unfortunately still under the rubble.”
Read more here: Christian Atsu rescued injured from earthquake rubble in Turkey
Here are some of the latest images we have been sent over the news wires of the gathering international aid effort to provide assistance in Turkey and Syria.
Updated
Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports:
Syria was accused of playing politics with aid after the Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, said his country should be responsible for the delivery of all aid into Syria, including those areas not under Syrian government control.
The dispute over the control of the aid – along with the weather, destroyed roads and closed crossing points – is hampering aid efforts into northern Syria, which is held by rebel groups.
The government in Damascus allows aid to enter the region through only one border crossing.
Syria has been resistant to allowing aid into a region serving more than 4 million people because it regards the aid as undermining Syrian sovereignty and reducing its chances of winning back control of the region.
“The areas worst affected by the earthquake inside Syria look to be run by the Turkish-controlled opposition and not by the Syrian government,” said Mark Lowcock, the former head of UN humanitarian affairs. “It is going to require Turkish acquiescence to get aid into those areas. It is unlikely the Syrian government will do much to help.”
Read more here: Syria accused of playing politics with aid in aftermath of earthquake
Have you been affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria?
The Guardian community team want to hear from people in the region about the impact of the earthquake and how they have been affected. They are also interested in speaking to people involved in the humanitarian response about what they have seen and the impact of the disaster.
If you would like to take part and are 18 years or over, you can get in touch by filling in the form you can find here, or contacting them directly via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding +44(0)7766780300.
Find out more here: Have you been affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria?
Helena Smith reports for the Guardian from Athens:
A team of Greek rescue workers, specialised in dealing with natural disasters, have arrived in Turkey’s Hatay region with sniffer dogs, doctors, nurses and a special fire-fighting vehicle.
The 21-strong team, which flew in on a C-130 military plane, started pitching tents and getting to work this morning. “We are going to give it our best,” said team leader Dimitris Roumbas whose experience in search and rescue stretches back 25 years.
“Just as we would work in our country, we will work in the country that is our neighbour. Our work is to free and save as many lives as possible.”
The prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, instructed the mission be sent to Turkey within hours of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake strike. In a rare telephone call on Monday evening with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğa , he reiterated Athens’ “readiness to provide all further assistance necessary.”
The search and rescue mission is likely to followed by many more, officials say.
Greece was among the first countries to offer help to Turkey despite an historic rivalry that dates back decades over regional disputes.
In December as bilateral tensions rose and the rhetoric became ever more inflammatory, Erdoğan threatened to strike Athens with short-range ballistic missiles, in a move that not only highlighted the degree to which ties had deteriorated, but the escalating threat of armed conflict in the eastern Mediterranean.
In an about-turn that would have been inconceivable before the earthquake, the Turkish embassy in Athens chose to thank Greeks in a Greek-language tweet, writing “for your immediate response and messages of solidarity towards Turkey after the catastrophic earthquake that hit our country.”
The assistance has evoked memories of the earthquake diplomacy that flourished – and helped ameliorate ties – in 1999 when both countries were also hit by devastating quakes within weeks of each other.
Updated
In the UK, the development minister, Andrew Mitchell, has said that the UK’s contribution to the rescue effort was ready to leave for Turkey, but had been delayed as rescue teams globally were coordinated.
Speaking on the GB News channel, Mitchell said “Britain is sending 76 people who specialise in getting people out of the rubble and four sniffer dogs, and also an emergency response team to see what more widely we can do to help.
“The critical thing in these circumstances is the first 72 hours, these significant British assets are waiting to leave Birmingham, they were ready to leave last night. It’s been coordinated very professionally by the Turkish authorities. They will be leaving imminently.
“And of course, they will be landing in daylight. And that is the time when they can be most effective. One of the things we learned from the Haiti earthquake over 10 years ago now was the importance of coordination and everyone not just rushing in.
“It will land in daylight today, I hope, later this morning, and it will immediately hit the ground running. I hope that they will be able to save lives.”
Updated
Difficult conditions frustrate rescue efforts as death toll reaches 5,000
Ruth Michaelson and Deniz Barış Narlı in Ankara and Sam Jones recap the latest update for the Guardian:
Dozens of powerful aftershocks continued to jolt southern Turkey and northern Syria on Tuesday, a day after an earthquake struck the region killing more than 5,000 people and destroying thousands of buildings, as difficult conditions, freezing temperatures and damaged roads hampered rescue efforts.
As the scale of the devastation from the 7.8 magnitude tremor continued to unfold, the World Health Organization warned the number of casualties could exceed 20,000.
On Tuesday morning, Turkey’s vice-president, Fuat Oktay, said 3,419 people had been killed in the quake, with another 20,534 had been injured. The number of confirmed deaths on the Syrian side of the border rose to 1,602, bringing the death toll in both countries to 5,021. Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed.
People in remote towns in southern Turkey described how relief efforts were stretched to breaking point, amid destruction over a border region spanning almost 650 miles.
In rebel-held northern Syria, volunteer rescue workers said they lacked some of the most basic fuel and other provisions required to pull those still trapped under the rubble of their homes.
An unknown number of people remain trapped and efforts to find survivors have been frustrated by frigid conditions. Poor internet connections and damaged roads between some of the worst-hit cities in Turkey’s south, home to millions of people, also hindered rescue teams.
Read more here: Difficult conditions frustrate rescue efforts after Turkey and Syria earthquakes as toll reaches 5,000
WHO: 23m people including 1.4m children likely to have been affected by earthquake
Adelheid Marschang, World Health Organization (WHO) senior emergency officer, has said about 23 million people, including 1.4 million children, were likely to be exposed in both countries following the earthquake and its aftershocks that reduced thousands of buildings to rubble.
Marschang said Turkey had a strong capacity to respond to the crisis but that the main unmet needs in the immediate and medium term would be across the border in Syria, already grappling with a years-long humanitarian crisis due to the civil war and a cholera outbreak.
“This is a crisis on top of multiple crises in the affected region,” she said at the organisation’s board meeting in Geneva. “All over Syria, the needs are the highest after nearly 12 years of protracted, complex crisis, while humanitarian funding continues to decline.”
The WHO said it was dispatching emergency supplies, including trauma and emergency surgical kits, and activating a network of emergency medical teams.
“It’s now a race against time,” said the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Every minute, every hour that passes, the chances of finding survivors alive diminishes.”
He said the WHO was especially concerned about areas of Turkey and Syria from where no information had emerged since Monday’s earthquake. “Damage mapping is one way to understand where we need to focus our attention,” he said.
Updated
The flow of critical United Nations aid from Turkey to north-west Syria has temporarily halted due to damage to roads and other logistical issues related to the deadly earthquake that struck the two countries on Monday, a UN spokesperson said.
“Some roads are broken, some are inaccessible. There are logistical issues that need to be worked through,” Madevi Sun-Suon, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told Reuters.
“We don’t have a clear picture of when it will resume,” she said.
Updated
The Ghana Football Association says former Chelsea and Newcastle forward Christian Atsu has been rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey. The GFA says Atsu is receiving treatment but didn’t give details of any injuries, Associated Press reports. The Ghana international plays for Turkish club Hatayspor. His condition had been unconfirmed overnight.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires from the regions affected by the earthquake.
Updated
The BBC’s Turkish language service is carrying some quotes from the Hatay metropolitan municipality mayor, Lütfü Savaş, who says search and rescue operations have begun in the region after a delay. He is quoted as saying:
With the support of the mayors of Ankara, Istanbul and İzmir, we can now provide food, tents and drinking water support. Most of the public buildings, our own building, the fire department, AFAD, three hospitals have been severely damaged, our losses are very high. The airport is unusable. We are focused on what we can recover quickly with construction equipment, but experienced professionals are needed. There is a serious communication problem in the city centre and in certain parts of Hatay.
Savaş said there are nearly 2,000 destroyed buildings in Hatay. He was also critical of anti-earthquake precautions, saying “It is a very strong earthquake, but we could have survived it with less damage.”
Updated
Turkish police on Tuesday said they had detained four people over “provocative” social media posts after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in southern Turkey.
The four individuals were detained after officers found accounts that shared “provocative posts aiming to create fear and panic”, the police said.
It added that a wider investigation into social media accounts was ongoing but offered no information on the content of the posts, Agence France-Presse reports.
Turkish social media have been filled with posts by people who complain about a lack of search and rescue efforts in their area, particularly in Hatay.
Combined death toll in Turkey and Syria exceeds 5,000
Turkey’s vice-president has said that the death toll in the country from the earthquake now stands at 3,419, Reuters reports. That takes the combined official death tolls from Turkey, Syria and the rebel-held areas of Syria to 5,021.
Updated
How you can help victims of the Turkey and Syria earthquake
Many international aid organisations have set up appeals to provide emergency assistance to Turkey and Syria after the devastating quakes yesterday which have claimed nearly 5,000 lives and levelled buildings across the region. Here are some places where you can donate:
British Red Cross: Turkey and Syria appeal
Islamic Relief: Turkey-Syria earthquake appeal
Doctors Without Borders Australia: Syria-Turkey appeal
Care US: Turkey and Syria earthquakes fund
Save the Children US: Turkey and Syria earthquakes appeal
An earthquake of magnitude 5.7 struck eastern Turkey on Tuesday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.
Reuters reports the centre said the quake was at a depth of 46 km (28.58 miles).
Seismologists would expect there to be a series of aftershocks after the two major quakes yesterday. Although less powerful than the initial event, they pose a risk to rescue workers and could provoke further collapses among buildings already weakened by yesterday’s quakes.
24,400 people involved in Turkish search and rescue, 5,775 buildings confirmed collapsed
Turkey has deployed more than 24,400 search and rescue personnel to the quake area, and has confirmed that 5,775 buildings have collapsed.
The number of personnel was expected to rise with the arrival of additional people, though the wintry conditions were hampering their deployment, disaster management agency official Orhan Tatar said Tuesday.
Associated Press reports that Tatar said his agency had received 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, but only 5,775 of those reports have been confirmed.
About 55 helicopters had conducted 154 sorties to transport emergency aid and around 85 trucks were distributing food, he said.
“The adverse weather conditions continue in the region. Therefore, from time to time it may be difficult to transport these search and rescue teams to the region,” he added. Temperatures overnight in the quake-hit city of Gaziantep sank to -5C (23F).
Updated
Total death toll approaches 5,000 as number reported dead in Syria rises again
At least 812 people were killed in government-held areas in Syria following two deadly earthquakes and a series of aftershocks in neighbouring Turkey, the state news agency Sana said on Tuesday.
Sana said at least 1,449 people were injured in the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, Idlib and Tartus.
Reuters also reports that the death toll given by those operating in Syria’s rebel-held areas has risen to 790, with a warning that it will “dramatically” rise.
With the most recent death toll in Turkey given as 3,381, that takes the total officially confirmed dead in the three areas to 4,983.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us over the news wires from Turkey and Syria, illustrating the extent of the destruction caused by yesterday’s two strong quakes.
Updated
Ruth Michaelson is in Turkey for the Guardian, and sends this latest dispatch:
Turks increasingly vented their anger online about what they said was a negligent emergency response in the southernmost province of Hatay, with many complaining that rescue efforts had failed to reach the area. In Hatay, the quake levelled multiple government buildings including the local chapter of Turkey’s disaster relief agency, the AFAD.
“I am so angry,” said analyst Gönül Tol, of the Middle East Institute in Washington. “There are no rescue teams from the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management in Hatay. People are trying to dig out loved ones trapped under rubble. It is cold, raining, no electricity. One family member is trapped under a heavy concrete slab, waiting for rescue workers for hours.”
Some Turkish civilians increasingly took it on themselves to help. A 25-year-old nurse, Nihal Atasoy, spoke as she waited to board a flight to Adana, after deciding to volunteer with the rescue effort.
“I used to live in Osmaniye, but when I called I couldn’t reach my friends there in the hours after the quake. When I finally got through to them they said things like ‘my house is in ruins’. So I decided to volunteer, as I normally work in intensive care,” she said. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’ll find when I get to Adana, whether I will try to save people trapped under the rubble, or work in the hospital as a nurse.”
Updated
Associated Press reports that a fire at the port of İskenderun on the Mediterranean Sea continues for the second day. Television images showed thick black smoke rising from burning containers which had toppled when the quakes struck on Monday. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said a Turkish coast guard vessel was assisting efforts to extinguish the fire.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can reach me via email at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
Updated
Our First Edition newsletter today is on the subject of yesterday’s earthquake, and Archie Bland explains some of the science:
The first earthquake took place on the East Anatolian fault – the boundary between the Anatolian plate, the African plate, and the Arabian plate in the Earth’s crust. While it has been more than a century since an earthquake caused such devastation on this fault, there have been a number of smaller quakes in the last 25 years, and the region has been considered at serious risk of something worse.
There have been higher magnitude earthquakes than this one even in recent years around the world, but that is not a sufficient measure of impact on its own: crucial to the devastation here was the location of the earthquake near large population centres, and how close to the surface of the Earth it hit.
A deep earthquake takes place between 300km and 700km down. This one was very shallow – about 17km below the surface – meaning that it was felt more powerfully and across a wider region above ground.
That impact was magnified by a 7.5-magnitude aftershock – on a different faultline 100km away, and much larger relative to the initial quake than aftershocks typically are. Earthquake magnitude is measured on a logarithmic scale, meaning that this aftershock only released about a third of the energy of the first even though the figures are close – but in hitting buildings already severely damaged by the initial quake, it greatly amplified the original damage, and put many rescue workers at risk.
Read more here: Why the Turkey and Syria earthquake was a catastrophe
Updated
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, on this saddest of days. My colleague Martin Belam will be with you for the next few hours.
Summary
It is almost 9am in Hatay, Turkey. If you’re just joining us, here is where things stand following the massive earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
International rescue missions have rushed to Turkey and Syria after one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the region in at least a century left more than 4,800 people dead, thousands injured and an unknown number trapped in the rubble. The early-morning quake and dozens of aftershocks brought down entire apartment blocks in Turkey and heaped more destruction on Syrian communities already devastated by over a decade of war.
At least 3,381 people were confirmed dead in Turkey, according to the Anadolu news organisation, which cited the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority. With the death toll coming from Syria, the most recent figure for which is 1,444, that brings the total toll to 4,825. The WHO has warned the number of dead could rise to more than four times this figure, or about 20,000, in the coming days.
The first quake struck as people slept and measured magnitude 7.8, making it one of the most powerful in the region in at least a century. It was felt as far away as Cyprus and Cairo. The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said preliminary data showed the second large quake measured 7.7 magnitude and was centred 67km (42 miles) north-east of Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, at a depth of 2km.
More than 7,800 people have been rescued across 10 provinces, according to Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkey’s disaster management authority.
As of 6am, early 13,000 rescue workers, many of them volunteers, had left Istanbul to help in impacted areas, according to the news organisation Sabah, which cites the governor of Istanbul. Many are bound for Hatay, where, according to reports, there is growing anger at the lack of assistance for people trapped under the rubble.
Syrian opposition said ‘hundreds of families’ are still trapped under rubble. Time is running out to save hundreds of families still trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings after this week’s devastating earthquake, the head of the Syrian opposition-run civil defence service said on Tuesday.
In 1999, when a quake of similar magnitude hit the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, it killed more than 17,000 people.
The death toll could rise to more than 20,000 people, said Catherine Smallwood, the World Health Organization’s senior emergency officer for Europe. “There’s continued potential of further collapses to happen so we do often see in the order of eightfold increases on the initial numbers,” she told AFP, speaking when the estimated toll stood at 2,600. “We always see the same thing with earthquakes, unfortunately, which is that the initial reports of the numbers of people who have died or who have been injured will increase quite significantly in the week that follows.”
Joe Biden spoke with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Monday to offer condolences and reaffirm Washington’s readiness to assist in rescue efforts, the White House said. The US president “noted that US teams are deploying quickly to support Turkish search and rescue efforts and coordinate other assistance that may be required by people affected by the earthquakes, including health services or basic relief items”, said a White House statement.
Updated
Death toll in Turkey rises to 3,381
The death toll from Monday’s earthquakes in Turkey has risen by 460 in the last few hours from 2,921 to 3,381, according to the Anadolu news organisation, which cites the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority.
With the highest death toll coming from Syria, the most recent figure for which is 1,444, that brings the total toll to 4,825.
The WHO has warned the number of dead could rise to more than four times this figure, or about 20,000, in the coming days.
#BREAKING Death toll from Monday's earthquakes in southern Türkiye rises to 3,381, says disaster agency pic.twitter.com/vaywgG4H8t
— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) February 7, 2023
Updated
Civilians across remote towns in southern Turkey have described how relief efforts were stretched to breaking point, amid destruction stretched over a border region spanning almost 650 miles. In rebel-held northern Syria, volunteer rescue workers said they lacked some of the most basic fuel and other provisions required to pull those still trapped under the rubble of their homes.
Ali Ünlü, from the remote town of Adıyaman, close to the quake epicentre in Kahramanmaraş, said that he had been working to free his elderly mother who was trapped under the rubble of her home since the earthquake levelled buildings in the town early on Monday morning.
“After the earthquake I ran to my mother’s house, and saw the building had collapsed. I was devastated. I started waiting for rescue teams, but they didn’t show up. I started calling officials, all the lines cut out. I gave my name and a record of the incident, but the officials said everyone is waiting. Since I called thens, no one has showed up,” he said.
“The weather is extremely cold, and we have no food. At first, one of my relatives texted that he is under the rubble and we could hear his voice under the debris. He was very close, I could hear him. He was trapped there for four hours, and eventually we dug him out. We also saved two or three others, but these are the ones that were living on higher floors. My mother, however, lived on the first floor. Eventually we had to stop as it was raining and there is a danger of the buildings collapsing further. We’ve waited until the morning, but there is no one. They said they’d come but that the roads were damaged, hospitals too. These resources are stretched so thin, but I feel there’s a lack of organisation.”
He added: “It’s been over 24 hours and my mother is still trapped under the rubble. I don’t know if she’s still alive or not.”
Updated
Associated Press journalist Sarah El Deeb reports that 244 buildings have been destroyed in Syria, and a further 325 damaged:
U.N. says at least 224 buildings in northwestern #Syria were destroyed and at least 325 were damaged, including aid warehouses in the enclave home to millions of displaced, most of them already living in half destroyed homes and temporary shelters #earthquake
— Sarah El Deeb (@seldeeb) February 7, 2023
Here are some of the most striking photographs from the last 24 hours:
Over 7,800 rescued in Turkey
More than 7,800 people have been rescued across 10 provinces, according to Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkey’s disaster management authority.
Syrian opposition says 'hundreds of families' still trapped under rubble
Time is running out to save hundreds of families still trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings after this week’s devastating earthquake, the head of the Syrian opposition-run civil defence service said on Tuesday.
Raed al-Saleh told Reuters that urgent help was needed from international groups for the rescue effort by the organisation known as the White Helmets in rebel-held northwest Syria, where hundreds were killed and injured.
“Every second means saving lives and we call on all humanitarian organisations to give material aid and respond to this catastrophe urgently,” he said.
Updated
It is nearing 9am in Turkey, and we are seeing more photos of rescue efforts.
24-year-old Rumeysa Yalcinkaya was rescued this morning after 27 hours trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaraş.
Here is what international front pages look like a day after the disaster:
Here are some of the international rescue teams making their way to Turkey from Germany, the US and Pakistan:
Rescuers of International Search and Rescue Germany prepare before boarding a charter plane, on their way to help find survivors of the deadly earthquake in Turkey, at Cologne-Bonn airport, Germany, on 6 February 2023. Photograph: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters
Difficult conditions and freezing temperatures hampered rescue efforts overnight in Turkey and Syria, one day after a powerful earthquake struck the region, killing at least 4,300 people.
As the scale of the devastation from the 7.8 magnitude tremor continued to unfold, the World Health Organization warned the number of casualties could exceed 20,000.
International rescue missions rushed to both countries and worked through the night to find survivors on Tuesday.
The early-morning quake and aftershocks, including a 7.5 magnitude tremor, wiped out entire apartment blocks in Turkey and heaped more destruction on Syrian communities already devastated by over a decade of war:
Updated
Almost 13,000 rescue workers leave Istanbul for affected areas - local media
As of 6 am, early 13,000 rescue workers, many of them volunteers, had left Istanbul in the last 12 hours, according to the news organisation Sabah, which cites the governor of Istanbul.
Many are bound for Hatay, where, according to reports, there is growing anger at the lack of assistance for people trapped under the rubble.
İstanbul Valisi Ali Yerlikaya: 06.00 itibarıyla İstanbul'umuzdan; 73 uçak ile 12 bin 752 personelimiz ve AFAD Gönüllülerimiz, başta Hatay olmak üzere deprem bölgesine sevk edildi. pic.twitter.com/4YHysJQvT5
— Sabah (@sabah) February 7, 2023
Updated
US-Turkey thinktank The SETA Foundation at Washington DC, posted this video of the large numbers of volunteers arriving at Istanbul airport overnight:
Turkish volunteers in large numbers are registering their names and phone numbers at the Istanbul airport, waiting in line for AFAD to deploy them to the #earthquake affected region. #deprem #Turkiye pic.twitter.com/mf6XStv7VE
— The SETA Foundation at Washington DC (@SETADC) February 6, 2023
Soylu has also posted this startling video of what the earthquake has done to a road:
The road between Gaziantep and Adana appears to have completely collapsed #TurkeyQuake pic.twitter.com/d1P40tSBdd
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) February 7, 2023
In Hatay, there is “huge anger” over the lack of emergency response personnel, Ragıp Soylu, the Turkey bureau chief for Middle East Eye, reports:
There is already huge anger towards the government for the absence of emergency response teams in Hatay.
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) February 7, 2023
The city’s airport is damaged, some roads leading to city have collapsed. Disaster management agency’s building also collapsed after the quake.
Mexico is sending rescue dogs with search and rescue teams to help in the aftermath of an earthquakes.
Here are some more videos from overnight of people waiting near their loved ones and calling for help from rescue workers, via Bermet Talant, a journalist and former Guardian Australia contributor:
In this video from Kahramanmaraş, a woman is begging for help saying her son is under the rubble. An elderly man says they can see the trapped but can't get them out, adds that there's no AFAD on the site. https://t.co/hm6CBL72Hg
— Bermet Talant (@bermet_talant) February 7, 2023
In this video, also from Kahramanmaraş, you can hear a woman's voice coming from under the rubble. Two men repeat the address of the residential building, saying 'These people are fighting against time. They will die. Urgently send a rescue team." https://t.co/395fLijvd1
— Bermet Talant (@bermet_talant) February 7, 2023
Another heartbreaking video, from Besni: "Nobody has come, nobody is helping us. Please, send us help. We're waiting." https://t.co/CjcrzbqgoI
— Bermet Talant (@bermet_talant) February 7, 2023
New Zealand’s government will provide NZ$1.5m (US$950,000) to the relief efforts in Turkey and Syria, foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta said.
The contribution via the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies will include $1m for Turkey and $500,000 for Syria, and will be used for “essential relief items” such as food, tents, blankets, and medical support, Mahuta said in a statement.
She added: “Officials will continue to monitor the humanitarian needs and assess options for further support.”
Updated
5.6 magnitude earthquake hits central Turkey
Another earthquake has hit central Turkey, Reuters reports, citing the Euro-Mediterranean Seismic Centre, which says that the quake measured 5.6.
A series of aftershocks are expected to follow the first earthquake.
According to the earthquake magnitude scale used by Michigan Technological University, 5.6 is likely to cause “slight damage to buildings and other structures”.
We’ll have more on this shortly.
Updated
The population of the ten provinces in southern Turkey affected by the earthquakes are home to 13.5 million people.
So far, according to the Anadolu agency, more than 5,600 buildings have collapsed.
It is just after 6am in Turkey, and we’re seeing stories of people rescued after a very long day and night, which means they survived not only the rubble’s collapse but the cold.
There are many, many more who have not yet been found, with the WHO predicting the death toll could reach 20,000 in the coming days.
For now, here are videos of a three-year-old toddler and a woman who were freed from collapsed buildings by rescuers:
A miracle after 22 hours!
— Hakan Copur (@hakancopur1) February 7, 2023
A 3-year-old baby was just rescued from the rubble in Malatya, one of the epicenters of #Turkiye earthquake.
pic.twitter.com/APRyeS38Dn
A woman is rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building in southeastern province of Sanliurfa after 22 hours https://t.co/9XuWtuDWGi pic.twitter.com/A7kpzGEkhd
— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) February 7, 2023
Updated
Survivors are being evacuated by military plane to areas where hospitals have greater capacity. In this video from the Anadolu agency, a military plane carrying injured survivors arrives in Istanbul:
Military plane carrying people injured in earthquake reaches Atatürk Airport, Istanbul https://t.co/9XuWtuDWGi pic.twitter.com/WktdTZPRXl
— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) February 7, 2023
Updated
My colleagues Ben Doherty and Mostafa Rachwani have this report on the earthquake survivors joining the search for the missing:
“There is a family I know under the rubble,” Omer El Cuneyd said, standing amid the chaos of the shattered city of Şanlıurfa.
“Until 11am or noon, my friend was still answering the phone. But she no longer answers. She is down there. I think her battery ran out,” he said, hoping against hope, for a miracle.
On the road, a stream of cars crawled north out of the city, taking traumatised residents away from the scene of Turkey’s most powerful earthquake in decades.
Nearby, a distraught family walked in the freezing rain, their belongings piled into a pram, look for a shelter to spend the night in.
Şanlıurfa, an historic, once-bustling city in southeastern Turkey, was devastated by the series of massive earthquakes that struck southern Turkey early on Monday morning, claiming more than 4,300 lives across the mostly Kurdish regions of the country and in neighbouring Syria.
Updated
Summary
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest from the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. You can get in touch with me directly on Twitter here if you see news you think we may have missed.
The death toll from the two quakes has risen to more than 4,300 according to government figures. At least 2,921 have been confirmed dead in Turkey, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said, and 1,444 in Syria, according to figures from the Damascus Government and rescue workers. Thousands more are injured, and the death toll is expected to rise.
In 1999, when a tremor of similar magnitude hit the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, it killed more than 17,000. The WHO warned that the toll from Monday’s earthquakes could pass 20,000.
Here is what we know so far:
The first quake struck as people slept, and measured magnitude 7.8, one of the most powerful quakes in the region in at least a century. It was felt as far away as Cyprus and Cairo. The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said preliminary data showed the second large quake measured 7.7 magnitude, and was 67km (42 miles) north-east of Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, at a depth of 2km.
In 1999, when a tremor of similar magnitude hit the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, it killed more than 17,000.
The death toll could rise to over 20,000, the World Health Organization’s senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood, said. “There’s continued potential of further collapses to happen so we do often see in the order of eight fold increases on the initial numbers,” she told AFP, speaking when the estimated toll stood at 2,600. “We always see the same thing with earthquakes, unfortunately, which is that the initial reports of the numbers of people who have died or who have been injured will increase quite significantly in the week that follows,” Smallwood added.
US President Joe Biden spoke with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday to offer condolences and reaffirm Washington’s readiness to assist in rescue efforts, the White House said. Biden “noted that US teams are deploying quickly to support Turkish search and rescue efforts and coordinate other assistance that may be required by people affected by the earthquakes, including health services or basic relief items,” the White House said in a statement.
Syria’s envoy to the UN said Monday that aid sent after the earthquake will reach all its population, even though Damascus does not control all of its territory. Asked if aid donated to Syria – some areas are held by rebels – would reach all of the population, Syria’s UN envoy Bassam Sabbagh said it would. “We assure the UN that we are ready to help and to coordinate to provide assistance to all Syrians in all territory of Syria,” Sabbagh said after meeting with UN secretary general António Guterres to convey a Syrian government request for aid. “We are ready to help also those who wanted to provide the help in all Syria,” he stressed.
More than 10 search and rescue teams from the European Union have been mobilised to help with the recovery, a spokesperson for the European Commission said. The US, UK, Canada, Israel, Russia and China are among other nations to have offered assistance and calls have emerged for the international community to relax some of the political restrictions on aid entering north-west Syria, the country’s last rebel-held enclave and one of the areas worst hit by the earthquake.
Prisoners mutinied in a northwestern Syria prison Monday after the earthquake, with at least 20 escaping the jail holding mostly Islamic State group members, a source at the facility told AFP.
There have been more than a 100 smaller aftershocks registered by seismologists.
Turkey’s armed forces have set up an air corridor to enable search and rescue teams to reach the zone affected.
Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear power plant, which is under construction, was not damaged by the earthquake, an official from the Russian company building the plant said.
The Swedish presidency of the European Union has activated the integrated political crisis response (IPCR) to coordinate EU support measures in response to the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the EU Council said in a statement. The IPCR arrangements strengthen the EU’s ability to take rapid decisions when facing major cross-sectoral crises requiring a response at the EU level.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has called for increased funding for humanitarian aid in Syria, saying that many people in the north-west of the country have already been displaced up to 20 times, and that medical care in the region was “strained beyond capacity, even before this tragedy”.
The partial destruction of a Roman-era castle in the Turkish city of Gaziantep has led to fears that two earthquakes that struck on Monday may have damaged other priceless monuments in Turkey and Syria, areas rich in cultural heritage.
Updated
