Massive earthquakes in Turkey and northern Syria kill thousands

TURKEY AND northern Syria are seismically turbulent regions, but the earthquakes that struck on February 6th are the most devastating since one near Istanbul in 1999 that killed 18,000 people. The initial quake, with a magnitude of 7.8, hit in the pre-dawn hours, with an epicentre near the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep. As of 10PM GMT at least 3,400 people were reported killed, and thousands more injured. The quake levelled thousands of buildings in an area stretching from Turkey’s Mediterranean coast to Diyarbakir, nearly 500km away.

Most of those reported dead were in Turkey, but hundreds were also reported across the border in neighbouring Syria, according to officials in Damascus and rescue workers in the country’s rebel-held north. The region affected within Syria is divided into an area controlled by the national government, one occupied by Turkey and others held by rebels. That will no doubt hamper relief efforts. Aftershocks continued to shake the region during the day. Another huge tremor, with a magnitude of more than 7, was recorded dozens of kilometres to the north (see map).

Footage aired by Turkish news channels showed rows of pancaked buildings and apartment blocks in Kahramanmaras, a city 70km north-east of Gaziantep. In Gaziantep, much of a landmark Roman castle overlooking the city centre had crumbled. Officials warned residents not to return to their homes. In Urfa, close to the border with Syria, a four-storey building seemingly undamaged by the quake collapsed hours later. Survivors buried under the rubble used social media to call for help. Some posted photos showing themselves trapped between floors. “My grandma and I have been trapped for at least five hours under the rubble,” wrote one Gaziantep resident. “I’m having trouble breathing and I can’t feel my legs.”

Across the border, rescue workers pleaded for help. “Our hospitals are overwhelmed with patients filling the hallways,” wrote the Syrian American Medical Society, a relief agency, reporting from northern Syria. “There is an immediate need for trauma supplies and a comprehensive emergency response.”

Relief efforts will be hampered by the fact that there is more than one Syria. A swath of territory in the north is occupied by Turkey. Idlib, the last rebel-held pocket in Syria’s north-west, also relies on Turkey for most of its trade. The government of Idlib said that, as of midday, more than 300 people had been killed and almost 1,000 injured. A video from Sarmada, a town near the border, showed a row of flattened buildings.

Most of Idlib’s 3m people were displaced from elsewhere in Syria during the civil war and live in shoddy makeshift homes. Even before the quake, the region did not have enough doctors or hospitals. The latter were a frequent target for Syrian and Russian airstrikes. Aid to these parts of Syria will have to come through Turkish border crossings, but Turkish authorities are already stretched thin by the devastation in their own country.

Areas controlled by the Syrian regime were also hit hard, particularly Aleppo, Syria’s second city. The health ministry says at least 370 people have died. The government is already struggling with shortages of fuel and electricity, a debased currency and a lack of dollars. It has few resources with which to respond. Indeed, it has yet to rebuild large parts of Aleppo flattened or damaged during the war. In the last month alone 13 residents were killed when their building collapsed—not because of earthquakes, but because of government neglect. Poor living conditions in regime-held Syria, where blackouts have stretched to 22 hours a day this winter, are a source of widespread resentment against the government. A sluggish response to the earthquake would exacerbate that anger.

Damage seems less extensive in Syria’s north-east, where a Kurdish-led administration holds sway. Turkey considers the Kurds there to be terrorists, and would not rush to send aid across its closed border. Any help with relief and reconstruction would have to come either from Iraqi Kurdistan or from the regime in Damascus.

The earthquake near Istanbul in 1999 was taken as a national wake-up call. The disaster, and botched search-and-rescue efforts, exposed a deeply flawed urban development model, corrupt building practices and a lack of preparedness. Under Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Justice and Development Party, in power since 2002, the disaster response system has improved. More than 3m housing units have been renovated and strengthened as part of an urban redevelopment scheme.

Yet housing quality remains a major problem. Apartment blocks built on the cheap or in defiance of building codes continue to crowd Turkish cities and towns. An amnesty on unregistered construction work, passed by Mr Erdogan’s government to win over voters ahead of general elections in 2018, has not helped. (Nearly 9m applications have poured in under the program.) The amnesty risked turning Turkish cities into “graveyards” in case of an earthquake, Cemal Gokce, the chairman of the Chamber of Civil Engineers, told Reuters a year later. His words may have proved prescient. ■