Turkey Earthquake Death Toll Translucent 3.700 People, President Erdogan Calls Worst Since 1939

Rescue teams are trying to find victims in the rubble of the building as a result of the earthquake that rocked Turkey. (Wikimedia Commons/Mahmut Bozarslan/VOA)

JAKARTA - The death toll from an earthquake centered on the city of Kahramanmaras surpassed 3,700 across Turkey and northwestern Syria on Monday, with freezing winter weather adding to the suffering of thousands of people who were injured or made homeless and hampering efforts to find survivors.

The magnitude 7.8 quake toppled entire apartment blocks in Turkish cities and piled even more devastation on the millions of Syrians displaced by years of war. It happened before sunrise in bad weather, and was followed by another big earthquake in the afternoon.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the quake a historic disaster and the worst to hit the country since 1939, but said authorities were doing everything they could.

"Everyone put their heart and soul into the effort even though the winter, cold weather, and the earthquake that occurred at night made things even more difficult," President Erdogan said.

In Diyarbakir in Turkey's southeast, a woman spoke beside the ruins of the seven-storey block where she lived: "We were shaken like a cradle. We were nine people in the house. My two sons are still in the rubble. I'm waiting for them."

The impact of the earthquake in Turkey. (Wikimedia Commons/Mahmut Bozarslan/VOA)

He was nursing a broken arm and had cuts on his face.

"It's like the apocalypse," said Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a Syrian in the northern city of Atareb.

"It's cold and there is heavy rain, and people need to be rescued."

The quake was the largest recorded worldwide by the US Geological Survey since a quake in the remote South Atlantic in August 2021.

In Turkey, the death toll stood at 2,316, said the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), making it the country's deadliest earthquake since a quake of the same magnitude in 1999 devastated the densely populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000 people. Meanwhile, more than 13,000 people were injured in Turkey due to the earthquake.

In Syria, at least 1,444 people were killed and 3,500 injured, according to figures from the Damascus government and rescue workers in the rebel-held northwestern region.

Poor internet connection and broken roads between some of the worst-affected cities in southern Turkey, home to millions of people, hampered efforts to assess and address the impact.

Temperatures in some areas are expected to drop to near freezing overnight, worsening conditions for people trapped under rubble or made homeless. It rained Monday after a blizzard hit the country over the weekend.

In the Turkish city of Iskenderun, rescue workers climbed a pile of rubble that was once part of the government hospital's intensive care unit to search for survivors. Health workers are doing what they can to deal with the new influx of injured patients.

"There are patients who are being operated on but we don't know what happened," said Tulin, a woman in her 30s, standing outside the hospital, wiping away tears and praying.

As for Syria, which has been ravaged by civil war for more than 11 years, the Ministry of Health said 711 people had died. Meanwhile in rebel-held northwestern Syria, emergency workers said 733 people had died.

Separately, the United Nations said 4.1 million people, many of them displaced by the conflict and living in camps, were already dependent on cross-border humanitarian assistance in northwestern Syria, and international support efforts were stretched and underfunded.

"Syrian society has been simultaneously hit by an ongoing cholera outbreak and harsh winter events including heavy rains and snow over the weekend," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

The second quake was large enough to collapse more buildings and, like the first, was felt across the region, endangering rescue teams struggling to pull survivors from the rubble.