It tragically continues to rise the provisional body count of the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria yesterday. According to official data the dead would be 4.890, but thousands are still missing trapped under the rubble.
“The death toll could go up to more than 20.000 people”, the World Health Organization's emergency manager for Europe, Catherine Smallwood, told AFP. “There is always the possibility of more collapses, so we often see the initial numbers go eightfold,” he said, adding that “unfortunately, with earthquakes the same thing always occurs: initial reports of the number of people death or injury increases significantly over the following week.”
Earthquake in Syria and Türkiye: more than 120 aftershocks
Last night's earthquakes struck 10 provinces, with its epicenter in the southern city of Kahramanmaras. As the hours go by, according to the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD). they would have occurred at least 120 aftershocks, while for the Usgs - the Geological Institute of the United States - which reports only the most significant tremors that are actually felt by those who are in the earthquake zone, have been at least 43 those of magnitude 4,3 or higher. Three of the aftershocks measured 6.0 or more, including the massive 7.5 magnitude which struck 95 kilometers (59 miles) north of the epicenter of the morning's main quake.
The situation in Syria
According to the Syrian opposition, quoted by the Guardian, there are still "hundreds of families and the time to save them is running out. This was stated by the head of the civil protection service managed by the Syrian opposition. According to the PA, the UN believes that the earthquake in Syria has destroyed at least 224 buildings located in the north-west of the country, while another 325 (at least) would have been damaged, including aid warehouses in the enclave that hosts millions of displaced people, most of whom already live in half-ruined houses.
Earthquake a thousand times more powerful than Amatrice: Anatolian soil has moved at least 3 meters
With a magnitude of 7,8, the earthquake that occurred in the night between Sunday and Monday between south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria was a thousand times stronger than that of Amatrice 2016 and 30 times stronger than that of Irpinia of 1980.
The quake was recorded by seismographs all over the world, up to Greenland, as revealed by the Danish Geological Institute. The earthquake occurred in a highly seismic area, meeting point of the East Anatolian, Arabica and African plates, with the former being crushed by the Arabian plate and pushed west towards the Aegean.
What was activated, the scientists explain, was one of the two major faults that cross Turkey, the South-East Anatolian one, which "is one of the most active in the Middle East, together with that of the Dead Sea that crosses Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan and which separates the Arabian plate from the African one”, observes the president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv), Carlo Doglioni. Along this fault i two edges of the ground have shifted: "in the area of maximum movement there was a shift of at least three meters", adds Doglioni. The slip was triggered by a "transpressive" movement, i.e. that along the fault the ground moved horizontally, activating a compression between the Anatolian and Arabian plates.
"Moving three meters it is a first estimate”, underlines the president of Ingv, explaining that more precise measurements “will be available as soon as we have the satellite data. At the moment we only have numerical models available”.
Erdogan: "We will leave these disastrous days behind"
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyp Erdogan speaks again: “I hope we will put these disastrous days behind us. Today is the day of 85 million hearts in one beat".
“The season is winter the weather is cold and the earthquake happened in the middle of the night, making things difficult, but everyone is working hard and they reacted as quickly as possible,” he added, expressing pain and condolences for the victims. Erdogan proclaimed seven days of national mourning: the flags will fly at half-mast until sunset from today until Sunday 12 February.
