7.8 magnitude tremor hit region early on Monday, causing widespread destruction and trapping people under rubble
Frantic rescue efforts were under way after a massive earthquake hit southern Turkey and northern Syria early on Monday.
Several hours after the strong 7.8 magnitude earthquake, as rescue teams rushed to find people affected, the scale of destruction was slowly beginning to take shape.
Turkey’s disaster agency reported 76 people killed in the country with 440 injured, while at least 42 were killed in Syria, according to state media.
Turkey’s Anadolu news agency said the governor of the southern province of Şanlıurfa reported 15 people were killed and 30 more injured. In Malatya, a town 225km (140 miles) north-east of the major city of Gaziantep, the local governor said at least 23 people had been killed, 420 injured and 140 buildings destroyed.
Turkey’s emergency management ministry, the AFAD, said the quake first struck at 4:17 am local time (0117 GMT), in the town of Pazarcık, an hour north of Gaziantep, a key industrial city in southern Turkey. A second tremor was felt at 04:26am local time (0126GMT), with the epicentre in the town of Nurdağı, some 80km (50 miles) south-west.
The US Geological Survey said the quake was was centred almost 18km (11 miles) deep, and a strong 6.7 aftershock rumbled about 10 minutes later.
State media showed frantic people across southern Turkey crowding into streets, amid warning from domestic emergency services that people could still be trapped underneath collapsed buildings.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said search and rescue teams had immediately been dispatched to the affected areas. “We hope to get through this together as soon as possible and with the least damage, and we continue our work,” he said.
The Turkish interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, said: “All our teams are on the alert. We have raised a level four alarm, which includes international aid.”
The German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) said the quake struck near the southern Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, while the EMSC monitoring service said the chance of a tsunami risk was being evaluated.
وقال شاهد من رويترز في ديار بكر على بعد 350 كيلومترا (218 ميلا) إلى الشرق ، إن الزلزال استمر نحو دقيقة وحطم النوافذ.
وعرضت مذيعتا TRT و Haberturk صورا لأشخاص تجمعوا حول مبنى محطم في كهرمان ماراس بحثا عن ناجين.
وقال محافظ إقليم سانليورفا في جنوب شرق تركيا ، صالح أيهان ، على تويتر ، "لقد دمرنا المباني" وحث الناس على الانتقال إلى مواقع آمنة.
"ظروف كارثية" في شمال سوريا
تشير لقطات مبكرة من فرق الإنقاذ المحلية إلى أن محافظة إدلب في شمال سوريا قد تكون واحدة من أكثر المناطق تضرراً ، بعد أن ضرب الزلزال منطقة تضررت بشدة بالفعل من أكثر من عقد من الحرب الأهلية وحيث يعيش الملايين في مناطق للنازحين داخلياً. .