On the 6th of February, the infamous Kahramanmaras earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.8, occurred in southern Turkey and northern Syria at 1:17 GMT. The strength of this earthquake only tripled; it was followed by an aftershock of magnitude 6.7 just 11 minutes later (plus more than 1,000 other aftershocks), but this was not its end. Another earthquake, caused by the first, had a magnitude of 7.5. Whatever the first earthquake had tampered with, the second took down, leaving both countries in a brutal state. It has killed thousands of people, left tens of millions of them affected (whether leaving them homeless, out of basic needs, injured, or lost close ones), and completely destroyed cities and roadways. As of the twelfth, the death toll, having increased rapidly, has reached past 33,000 (around 29,605 in Turkey and more than 4,500 in Syria).
The epicenters of these earthquakes were near Kahramanmaras and the Elbistan district respectively, and they reached ten provinces in the densely populated southern Turkey. This is the strongest earthquake to hit Turkey since 1939 and is one the deadliest earthquakes during the passing decades. Turkey sits right on top of the small and therefore dangerous Anatolian plate, and it had a junction with the Arabian and African plates. The fault line it broke was about 100 km long. The shakes were so strong that they even reached Lebanon, causing damage to or destroying a few buildings.
The Turkish government immediately established a three-month emergency state, sending thousands of rescue workers and vehicles, and setting up tents for refugees. Schools and universities have been closed for the set duration of two weeks, and so have national championships. The Turkish government’s response to the earthquake, however, caused an outrage from the country’s people at Erdoğan, the Turkish president, as it is considered by many survivors to not at all be up to an appropriate degree. Erdoğan has shown discontent to the backlash and “slander” he has been facing, going on by denying faults on his part, and even deactivating Twitter in Turkey. Twitter is the social media platform that has contributed most to the discussions people have been having online about the situation. “What happens, happens, this is part of fate’s plan,” he told someone when visiting the town of Pazarcık.
Syria is suffering just as badly, if not worse. The earthquakes hit Syria in the very spot where already displaced people from rebel-held areas (due to civil war and related conflicts) were trying to recover again, once again putting them out of safety. Syria appealed for humanitarian aid from the UN and other organizations, and has requested for even more aid from the EU. However, the EU’s support for Syria did not meet the high degree of the number of affected Syrians, who are already in need of said support due to them being ravaged from the war. What slowed down aid for them even more was the almost completely closed down border between Turkey and Syria, which was opened by Turkey by the Bab al-Hawa Crossing on the eighth, and the sanctions put on the latter country by western countries. Syria has accused the EU of failing to aid them, to which the EU, who consider their support not enough but definitely not careless either, disagreed.
The tremors may have ended, but both countries are still fighting against the damages made. People are still being rescued from the rubble, even after a week since the tragedy began. Furthermore, the roadways being destroyed do not make it any easier to transport supplies and needs to the survivors, which delays and worsens the recovery process yet even more. Cities flattened will unfortunately take years to be rebuilt, and it is estimated to be 84.1 million USD worth of damage. Nonetheless, there are aid groups - funded by both the government and donations - working to ease the recovery, like the Kurdish Red Crescent Movement, the International Red Cross, OCHA, and many more.
By Roj