Deadly Earthquakes Shake Turkey and Syria

This is a devel­op­ing story. Check back for updates. (Updated Feb. 8, 2023 14:38)

Amid rolling hills dot­ted with olive trees, men, women and chil­dren are seen shiv­er­ing among the wreck­age of homes, build­ings and vehi­cles.

Temperatures hover around freez­ing as inter­mit­tent rain and snow fall across much of south­east­ern Turkey and north­ern Syria in the after­math of the region’s strongest earth­quakes of the past 70 years.

Nearly 10,000 peo­ple have been killed and 35,000 injured after two pow­er­ful earth­quakes shook the region on Monday. The first struck just after 4 a.m. local time, mea­sur­ing 7.8 on the Richter scale. Then a sec­ond, 7.6 mag­ni­tude earth­quake fol­lowed at about 12 p.m. local time.

The earth­quake and its after­shocks flat­tened more than 3,000 build­ings in a 500-kilo­me­ter radius of its epi­cen­ter, located kilo­me­ters away from Gaziantep, Turkey. Tremors from the quake, the most pow­er­ful in the region since 1939, could be felt as far away as Egypt.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said every insti­tu­tion in the world’s sec­ond-largest olive oil-pro­duc­ing nation would be mobi­lized in res­cue and relief efforts.

“We are also coor­di­nat­ing our work after the earth­quake,” Erdoğan said, accord­ing to the state-run Anadolu Agency. ​“We hope that we will get through this dis­as­ter together as soon as pos­si­ble and with the least dam­age, and we con­tinue our work.”

The White Helmets, a civil defense unit oper­at­ing in north­west­ern Syria, declared the region a ​“dis­as­ter zone,” accord­ing to Anadolu Agency, and called for urgent help ​“amid lack of capa­bil­i­ties and ser­vices, a short­age of shel­ters and stormy and freez­ing weather.”

The Syrian American Medical Society, a non-profit, said its hos­pi­tals in Aleppo ​“are over­whelmed with patients fill­ing the hall­ways.”

Rescue teams from more than a dozen coun­tries are en route to the war-rav­aged region, home to an esti­mated 6 mil­lion refugees from the ongo­ing civil war in Syria.

So far, an inter­na­tional effort com­pris­ing 10,000 res­cue work­ers has man­aged to pull 8,000 sur­vivors from the rub­ble of col­lapsed build­ings in Turkey. Figures from Syria are more dif­fi­cult to ver­ify.

However, vil­lagers in rural Turkey have told The New York Times that they fear res­cue work­ers will not arrive in time to save thou­sands of lives.

“It has been hours since the earth­quake and so many peo­ple are search­ing for their loved ones,” Nuray Kabatas, a res­i­dent of Gaziantep with rel­a­tives in sur­round­ing towns, told the paper. ​“The res­cue oper­a­tions are all in the cities, by the time they get to the vil­lages it could be too late.”

Mustafa Tan, the chair­man of the Turkish national olive and olive oil coun­cil, con­firmed to Olive Oil Times the dif­fi­cul­ties fac­ing the coun­try and its olive oil sec­tor after the nat­ural dis­as­ter.“

Many peo­ple have lost their lives as a result of the earth­quakes in our coun­try and in neigh­bor­ing Syria,” he said. ​“This num­ber is increas­ing even more. Our wish is that the injured will recover as soon as pos­si­ble, and those trapped under the cave-in will be found alive.”

“We are sad as a fam­ily,” Tan added. ​“Thank God there are no casu­al­ties in our fam­ily. But, of course, there are impor­tant olive grow­ers and busi­nesses in the region. This is also some bad news. But we don’t have enough infor­ma­tion yet.”

Southeastern Turkey and north­ern Syria are home to some of the coun­tries’ most fruit­ful olive-grow­ing regions.

Ample rain­falls and pro­duc­ers enter­ing the ​‘on-year’ in the olive trees’ nat­ural alter­nate bear­ing cycle were attrib­uted to bumper har­vests in both coun­tries in the 2022/23 crop year.

According to International Olive Council data, Syria pro­duced 134,500 tons of olive oil, while Turkey enjoyed a record-high yield of 380,000 tons.

However, the wind­falls enjoyed by the region will be short-lived. The United States Geological Survey esti­mated that up to $1 bil­lion of dam­age has been done by earth­quakes and their after­shocks.

Seismologists blame poor enforce­ment of local build­ing codes for the immense rate of destruc­tion in Turkey, while infra­struc­ture in north­east­ern Syria has been extremely dam­aged by the decade-long con­flict, increas­ing the risk to human life from an earth­quake.

• The New York Times
• Financial Times
• Anadolu Agency