Over 50 people died and hundreds of others were trapped under debris in southern Turkey on Monday after a major earthquake of magnitude 7.9 collapsed dozens of buildings.
What Happened: The tremors of the massive earthquake that triggered a search for survivors under the rubble in snowy streets were felt in Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria, reported Reuters.
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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan-led authorities scrambled rescue teams and supply aircraft to the region and declared a “level 4 alarm” that called for international assistance.
Early updates from the government reported the death toll of at least 23 in Turkey’s Malatya province, 17 in Sanliurfa, six in Diyarbakir and five more in Osmaniye. About 42 had been killed, the state media said, in the South across the border in Syria.
Turkish local authorities said 16 structures collapsed in Sanliurfa and 34 in Osmaniye.
“I have never felt anything like it in the 40 years I’ve lived,” Erdem, a resident of the Turkish city of Gaziantep, told the publication.
“We were shaken at least three times very strongly, like a baby in a crib.”
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