A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 struck southeast Turkey and Syria, toppling buildings and driving terrified citizens outside on a cold winter night.
Rescue workers are frantically trying to find survivors from beneath the rubble after the massive earthquake left destruction and debris on both sides of the border with more than 1,500 people dead.
Around 4 a.m. on Monday, February 6, one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the area in a century jolted residents out of their beds and sent tremors as far as Lebanon and Israel.
Rescue workers and residents frantically searched for survivors under the rubble of buildings in multiple cities on both sides of the border.
The earthquake, which was felt as far away as Cairo, had its epicenter north of the city of Gaziantep, about 95 kilometers (60 miles) from the Syrian border.
On the Syrian side of the border, the quake smashed opposition-held regions that are packed with some four million internally displaced people (IDP) from the long civil war.
On the Turkish side, several big cities home to millions of Syrian refugees were in the affected area.
Suleyman Soylu, the interior minister, advised residents not to enter damaged structures due to the risks involved owing to the fact that there were at least six significant aftershocks.
The earthquake came as the region is experiencing a snowstorm that is expected to continue until Thursday.
Due to its location on several significant fault lines, Turkey experiences regular earthquakes.
Strong earthquakes that struck northwest Turkey in 1999 killed almost 18,000 people.
Author-Roberta Appiah
