Death toll of massive Turkey-Syria earthquake has risen to more than 3,800 people
Topics: World News, News
Rachel Lang
Featured Image Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy. UPI / Alamy
Topics: World News, News
The monstrous earthquake that killed more than 3,800 people across Turkey and Syria was felt as far away as Greenland.
The two massive quakes, hitting a magnitude of 7.8 and 7.5 on the richter scale, brought down whole apartment blocks in Turkish cities and piled more devastation on millions of Syrians who had been displaced by years of war.
There have been 2,379 people killed in Turkey, while a further 1,444 have died in Syria.
Tremors were felt as far away as Greenland 3,433 miles (5,524 kilometres) from the epicenter of the humongous quakes, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland confirmed.
Advert
"The large earthquakes in Turkey were clearly registered on the seismographs in Denmark and Greenland," seismologist Tine Larsen said, as per The Local.
"The waves from the earthquake reached the seismograph on the Danish island of Bornholm approximately five minutes after the shaking started.
She added: "Eight minutes after the earthquake, the shaking reached the east coast of Greenland, propagating further through all of Greenland."
The seismologist also confirmed that both earthquakes and multiple aftershocks were felt across Denmark and Greenland.
Tremors were also felt as far away as Egypt, Lebanon and the island of Cyprus, while a tsunami warning was briefly issued in Italy.
The monster quake struck before sunrise in harsh weather and was followed in the early afternoon by a second large shake felt across Turkey and Syria.
The second quake was big enough to bring down more buildings, hampering the rescue efforts of those struggling to pull casualties from the rubble of the first earthquake.
Speaking to Reuters, a woman from Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey nursed a broken arm and facial injuries among the wreckage of what was once her seven-storey apartment block.
"We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home," she said.
"Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I'm waiting for them."
Across the border in Syria, the quake affected an area held by opposition forces that are also temporarily home to around four million people who have been left displaced by the ongoing civil war in the country.
"It was like the apocalypse," Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a Syrian from the northern town of Atareb, told Reuters.
"It's bitterly cold and there's heavy rain, and people need saving."
Plummeting temperatures are expected to drop to near freezing overnight, worsening conditions for those still trapped under the rubble or left homeless by the quake.
Many of those people left with homes living in substandard accommodation and with very limited health care, with a health crisis expected to grip the twin nations in the coming days.