6th February, 2023
Death toll in the earthquakes that rocked Turkey and Syria on Monday has hit 1,900 with thousands of others injured, the worst in 100 years.
An earthquake of 7.8 magnitude struck near Gaziantep in the early hours of Monday while people were asleep.
A new 7.5-magnitude tremor hit at around 13:30 local time (10:30 GMT), which officials said was “not an aftershock.”
According to the BBC, the death toll from the first earthquake has risen to 1,121 in Turkey, according to the country’s disaster agency.
This brings the overall number of fatalities from the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria to more than 1,900, as the latest figures from Syria estimate that 783 people have been confirmed dead.
The number of casualties is expected to continue rising as rescuers search for survivors. It’s unclear yet how many people died as a result of the second tremor.
At least 7,634 were injured and 2,834 buildings were damaged in Turkey, said Orhan Tatar, AFAD’s general director.
The quake, one of the strongest to hit the region in more than 100 years, struck 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers, the US Geological Survey said.