Comment: Around 6,000 buildings - many of them residential - have collapsed, burying tens or even hundreds of thousands of people under the rubble. The combined death toll for Turkey and Syria - as of 21:30 CET on 6 Feb 2023 - is 2,700...
Update 7 February 2023
As of Tuesday evening local time, the govts of Türkiye and Syria have updated the number of casualties to a combined 6,246 dead and 33,226 injured - of which 812 fatalities and 1,449 injuries occurred in northern Syria.
Update 8 February 2023
As of Wednesday morning, media reports suggest that the combined death toll is poised to surpass 10,000...
© Rami Al Sayed/Agence France-Presse/Getty
The most powerful jolt, measured at 7.8 by USGS and 7.4 by Turkish disaster management agency, happened around 4:17 am local time, and was centered some 33 kilometers northeast from Gaziantep, a major provincial capital with a population of over 2 million people.
There was no immediate estimate of total casualties, but according to Turkish media reports dozens are feared killed, as multiple buildings were damaged or completely destroyed in the province of Gaziantep and across the neighboring Diyarbakir, Osmaniye and Malatya, with their residents trapped under the rubble.
Comment: In addition, about 9 hours later: Turkey hit by second major earthquake of magnitude 7.5
From Earthquake Track: This is looking like it'll be Turkey's worst earthquake since 1939, when around 35,000 people were killed.
With an estimated 3,500 buildings destroyed in cities across southern Turkey and northern Syria today - many of which were residential buildings in which people were sleeping - the death toll will probably go much higher.
While Turkey was arguably due another 'big one', what's odd about today's quakes is that they occurred on a much less active fault-line (the East Anatolian Fault, in the country's south). Turkey's 'big ones' usually occur in the northern, western and eastern sectors of the country.
Some of the footage from the region is jaw-dropping. Our thoughts and prayers go to the millions of people affected.