Turkey and Syria earthquake: Frantic rescue efforts continue as as number of killed rises
Frantic rescue efforts are continuing as hundreds of people are trapped under rubble following a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake early Monday morning that rocked south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria killing more than 2,600.
The number of dead is expected to rise as rescue workers search the wreckage in cities and towns across the region.
At least 20 aftershocks followed, some hours later during daylight, the strongest with a magnitude of 6.6, Turkish authorities said.
Rescue workers and residents in multiple cities have been searching for survivors, working through tangles of metal and giant piles of concrete.
Turkey-Syria earthquake – latest updates
A hospital in Turkey also collapsed and patients, including newborn babies, were evacuated from a handful of facilities in Syria.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “Because the debris removal efforts are continuing in many buildings in the earthquake zone, we do not know how high the number of dead and injured will rise.
“Hopefully, we will leave these disastrous days behind us in unity and solidarity as a country and a nation.”
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Aftershock hits during news report in Malatya
The quake, felt as far away as Cairo, was centred on Turkey’s south-eastern province of Kahramanmaras.
It struck a region that has been shaped on both sides of the border by more than a decade of civil war in Syria.
Latest figures from Turkey’s disaster agency show 1,651 fatalities have been recorded in 10 provinces, with some 7,600 injured.
In Syria’s government-controlled areas, a total of 538 people have died.
The Syrian Civil Defence, known as the White Helmets, has confirmed 430 fatalities in opposition-held areas, which are packed with about four million people displaced from other parts of the country by the fighting.
Hundreds of families remain trapped in the rubble, according to the White Helmets.
Strained health facilities and hospitals were quickly filled with wounded, rescue workers said. Others had to be emptied, including a maternity hospital, according to the SAMS medical organisation.
“We fear that the deaths are in the hundreds,” Dr Muheeb Qaddour said by phone from the town of Atmeh, in northern Syria.
Buildings were reported collapsed in a wide area extending from Syria’s cities of Aleppo and Hama to Turkey’s Diyarbakir, more than 200 miles to the north-east.
Rescuers carry out a girl from a collapsed building following an earthquake in Diyarbakir, Turkey
Building collapses following quake in Malatya, Turkey
Nearly 900 buildings were destroyed in Turkey’s Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras provinces, said vice president Fuat Oktay.
A hospital collapsed in the Mediterranean coastal city of Iskenderun, but casualties were not immediately known, he said.
“Unfortunately, at the same time, we are also struggling with extremely severe weather conditions,” Mr Oktay told reporters.
Nearly 2,800 search and rescue teams have been deployed in the disaster-stricken areas, he added.
The US Geological Survey measured Monday’s quake at 7.8. Hours later, a 7.5 magnitude one struck more than 60 miles away.
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An official from Turkey’s disaster management agency said it was a new earthquake, not an aftershock, though its effects were not immediately clear.
The quake heavily damaged Gaziantep’s most famed landmark, its historic castle perched on a hill in the centre of the city.
Parts of the fortresses’ walls and watch towers were levelled and other parts heavily damaged.
Gaziantep castle in Gaziantep, Turkey
In Diyarbakir, hundreds of rescue workers and civilians formed lines across a mountain of wreckage, passing down broken concrete pieces, household belongings and other debris as they searched for trapped survivors.
In north-west Syria, the quake added new woes to the opposition-held enclave centred on the province of Idlib.
The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defence described the situation there as “disastrous”, adding that entire buildings have collapsed and people are trapped under the rubble.
A wounded man looks on as rescuers search for survivors under the rubble, following an earthquake in rebel-held town of Jandaris, Syria
Civil defense workers and residents search through rubble in the Syrian town of Harem (Pic: AP)
In the small Syrian rebel-held town of Azmarin in the mountains by the Turkish border, the bodies of several dead children, wrapped in blankets, were brought to a hospital.
“It was like the apocalypse,” said Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a Syrian in the northern town of Atareb.
“It’s bitterly cold and there’s heavy rain, and people need saving.”
Mr Erdogan said early on Monday that 45 countries had offered help with search and rescue efforts.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the UK government would be “sending immediate support”, with a team of 76 search-and-rescue specialists, equipment and four search dogs being sent to Turkey.
He said: “We have deployed a large search and rescue team with state-of-the-art lifesaving equipment…
“With Syria of course the situation is more complicated. But we have given many years of support to the White Helmets… and will be working through our UN partners on the ground and have increased funding specifically in response to this situation.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted: “My thoughts are with the people of Turkiye and Syria this morning, particularly with those first responders working so valiantly to save those trapped by the earthquake.
“The UK stands ready to help in whatever way we can.”
Several fault lines run through Turkey and Syria
Turkey sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes.
At least 18,000 were killed in powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.
Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at University College London, told Sky News that Turkey and Syria have experienced “the worst kind of earthquake”.
“It’s a very shallow earthquake beneath a highly populated area, a very strong earthquake, and in a region where we can see the buildings just can’t withstand this level of shaking.”
Mr Hicks said there is a “small chance” there could be “stronger aftershocks” or even another earthquake “larger than the main shock”.
A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.
These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.
The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.
Israel Gaza map
Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.
Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.
Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.
Israel says no famine in Gaza
Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.
“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.
Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”
Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.
Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.
“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.
The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.
Palestinians struggle to get aid at a community kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.
The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.
But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.
The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.
Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.
It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.
According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.
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Man arrested over Nord Stream attacks
When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.
The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.
Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.
At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.
He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.
A satellite image shows gas from the Nord Stream pipeline bubbling up in the Baltic Sea. File pic: Roscosmos via Reuters
After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.
Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.
He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.
While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.
The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.
In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.
German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.
Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.
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The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.
According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.
Spare pipes for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. File pic: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer
Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.
On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.
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