Ankara/Damascus: The death toll from the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria four days ago has surpassed 21,000, according to latest data released by authorities and rescuers.
The death toll from the earthquakes climbed to 17,674 in Turkey, with 72,879 injuries, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Thursday.
In Syria, 1,678 people were killed in government-held areas, and the death toll in the opposition-held region stood at 2,190, according to media reports.
A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Turkey's southern province of Kahramanmaras at 4:17 a.m. local time, followed by a magnitude 6.4 quake a few minutes later in the country's southern province of Gaziantep and a magnitude 7.6 earthquake at 1:24 p.m. local time in Kahramanmaras province, Xinhua news agency reported.
International search and rescue teams, including an 82-member Chinese rescue team that arrived in Turkey on Wednesday, rushed to the quake-impacted zone to assist in rescue efforts.
One survivor from the city of Dana described to Arab News what he witnessed on Monday morning.
Mohamed Tata was woken by a rumbling sound and a powerful shake at 4:15 a.m. local time on Monday.
Moments later, he could hear a building falling. He was unsure whether it was the one he was in or the one next to it. It was only after the second shake that he rushed downstairs with his children.
“Are we shaking? Is the earth beneath us shaking? When we reached the street, we saw our neighbors and the buildings flattened to the ground. Men, women and kids crying and shouting. It was like a scene from doomsday” he told Arab News.
He recalled the screams of helpless children trapped underneath the rubble. “Heartbreaking, totally heartbreaking,” he said.
For some Syrians like Tata, the earthquake evoked a fear worse than that experienced during the 12-year civil war when cities and towns faced bombardment.
He told Arab News:
“I went through the Aleppo bombing ... Planes used to bomb and shells hit the buildings … But I never felt fear in this way.”
A survivor in Turkey said that the gap between his wardrobe and his bed helped him survive the dreadful tremors. Just when he felt the trembling, he jumped off his bed and knelt next to the wardrobe. He escaped the tremors unscathed as the apartment building he was living with his wife collapsed in Hatay’s central Antakya district.
It took mere seconds for their building to entirely collapse. “I was sleeping next to my wife when the earthquake began. I told her to jump to the other side, to the space next to the bed, but she apparently remained in bed,” he told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Tuesday. He does not know what happened to her.
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