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Latest on quakes that hit beleaguered region
- A second 7.5-magnitude earthquake hit southeastern Turkey after the 7.8-magnitude temblor earlier Monday.
- The quakes have killed more than 3,700 people in Turkey and northern Syria, and the toll is expected to rise.
- The early morning 7.8-magnitude earthquake was centered about 20 miles from Gaziantep, a major city and provincial capital in Turkey.
- The first quake was Turkey's largest disaster since 1939, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said.
Los Angeles quake team heading to Turkey will bring along 'hope'
The Los Angeles County Fire Department’s heavy urban search and rescue team heading to Turkey to help in the disaster has found people alive when responding to past international earthquakes, an official said Monday.
“One of the most important things is for the people to have hope,” Deputy Fire Chief Tom Ewald said, adding, “For the folks impacted, every little bit makes a difference.”
The Los Angeles team is one of two being sent by the U.S. The other is out of Virginia.
Ewald said at a news conference that in addition to expertise and equipment for heavy rescues in reinforced concrete, the team will also have medical equipment and doctors who can perform amputations on people who are trapped so they can be rescued.
The Los Angeles County team, which specializes in earthquakes, has deployed to disasters in other countries, including the 2017 earthquake in Mexico City, officials said.
The team will take everything it needs for a base camp. The hope is that it is in Turkey and operational within 18 hours, Ewald said Monday evening.
“Through history, there’s been rescues made out to the 10-day mark and even slightly beyond that,” Ewald said.
Australia pledges $10 million in assistance after earthquakes
Australia pledged $10 million in humanitarian assistance to Turkey and Syria on Tuesday following a 7.8-magnitude earthquake and a strong aftershock that have killed thousands of people.
It pledged $7 million to Turkey and $3 million to Syria, in part through partner agencies like the Red Cross and Red Crescent and UNICEF, Pat Conroy, Australia’s minister for defense industry and minister of international development, said in a joint statement with the country's foreign affairs minister.
New Zealand also announced $1.5 million in assistance to the two countries Tuesday, which it called an initial contribution.
Other countries have also pledged aid to Turkey and Syria after the earthquake struck early Monday. More than 3,700 people have died in the two countries, officials have said.
More than 6,000 buildings collapsed, state-run media reports
As rescuers search for survivors following a 7.8-magnitutde earthquake that struck Turkey, more than 6,000 buildings in the country have collapsed, state-run media reported.
Yunus Sezer, the head of the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, said 6,217 buildings have collapsed in the earthquake and aftershocks, according to the Anadolu Agency, a state-run news agency.
More than 3,700 people have died in Turkey and Syria, officials have said. Countries all over the world, including the U.S., have offered help and search and rescue teams.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said it's the country’s largest disaster since 1939, when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the country. Monday's earthquake was also followed by a 7.5-magnitude aftershock.
People pulled from rubble almost 24 hours after quake, news agency reports
Two people in the Turkey province of Sanliurfa have been pulled from collapsed buildings by rescuers 18 and 22 hours after a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the country, the Anadolu news agency in Turkey reported.
The videos posted by the Anadolu Agency, which is state-run, were said to show a person being rescued from a collapsed six-story building 18 hours after the earthquake and a woman being rescued 22 hours after it.
Structures where earthquakes hit were ‘particularly vulnerable,’ USGS says
Buildings in the area where a devastating earthquake struck in Turkey on Monday, killing more than 3,700 people, were vulnerable to earthquakes, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
“It’s difficult to watch this tragedy unfold, especially since we’ve known for a long time about how poorly the buildings in the region tend to behave in earthquakes,” USGS scientist David Wald said in an article on its website. “An earthquake this size has the potential to be damaging anywhere in the world, but many structures in this region are particularly vulnerable.”
Also contributing to the intense shaking was how shallow the two largest of the earthquakes were — the main one was 11 miles deep, and a 7.5-magnitude aftershock was just over 6 miles deep, it said.
"Shallow” earthquakes are considered those with depth of 70 kilometers or less, or around 43½ miles, according to the USGS. Intermediate are those between around 43½ miles and 186½ miles, and deep are between that and nearly 435 miles, according to the agency.
The region has older buildings with older types of concrete, which were not designed to absorb so much shaking, the USGS said.
Three tectonic plates, the Anatolia, Arabia and Africa plates, interact with one another in the region where the earthquakes struck, according to the agency, and more aftershocks are expected.
‘Time is of the essence’ for aid, U.S. representative to U.N. says
The U.S. representative to the United Nations issued an urgent call for aid to Turkey and Syria after the deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake and aftershocks.
“With the death toll already in the thousands, time is of the essence to get assistance to Türkiye and Syria,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Monday in a statement, using another spelling by which Turkey is known.
Syria has been wracked by more than a decade of civil war, and medical facilities there “have long been strained beyond capacity,” Thomas-Greenfield said. Turkey has taken in 3.5 million Syrian refugees.
"President Biden has authorized an immediate U.S. response, and I echo the U.N. Secretary-General’s call to the international community to urgently increase critical funding and assistance to help those affected," she said.
‘The building collapsed on us’: Survivor of Turkey quake fears for wife
A man who survived Monday’s devastating earthquake in Turkey said that a building collapsed on him and his wife and that, although he was able to escape, she was in the rubble.
Hulusi Ibrahim said that he spent three hours with his wife after "the building collapsed on us" but that she never showed any response, according to Reuters video from the scene.
“My wife is in there. One should never give up on hope, but most probably she died. There is always hope, but I stayed with her for three hours and spent another hour to get out,” Ibrahim told the news agency.
“I didn’t get any response from her for three hours,” he said. “I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to say.”
At least 3,790 people have died in Turkey and in Syria, according to officials.
Search and rescue teams from Virginia, Los Angeles deploying to help
Teams from Virginia’s Task Force 1 and the Los Angeles County Fire Department are being deployed to help in the earthquake disaster in Turkey, the U.S. Agency for International Development said Monday.
“We wish safe travels to all those making the journey to help communities devastated by this catastrophe,” said USAID, which is an independent agency of the U.S. government.
Several countries, as well as the European Union, have offered assistance to Turkey after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake, has killed at least 3,790 people in Turkey and Syria.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department said its team, USA-2, will send 81 personnel, six K9 teams and three structural engineers. Virginia's team, USA-1, said it was sending 79 members and six dogs.
Deadly earthquakes since 2000
A look at some of the world’s deadliest earthquakes since 2000:
- Sept. 28, 2018: A magnitude-7.5 earthquake hits Indonesia, killing more than 4,300 people.
- April 25, 2015: In Nepal, more than 8,800 people are killed by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake.
- March 11, 2011: A magnitude-9.0 quake off the northeast coast of Japan triggers a tsunami, killing more than 20,000 people.
- Jan. 12, 2010: In Haiti, a staggering 316,000 people are killed by a magnitude-7.0 quake, according to government estimates.
- May 12, 2008: A magnitude-7.9 quake strikes eastern Sichuan in China, resulting in over 87,500 deaths.
- May 26, 2006: More than 5,700 people die when a magnitude-6.3 quake hits the island of Java, Indonesia.
- Oct. 8, 2005: A magnitude-7.6 earthquake kills over 80,000 people in Pakistan’s Kashmir region.
- Dec. 26, 2004: A magnitude-9.1 quake in Indonesia triggers an Indian Ocean tsunami, killing 230,000 people in a dozen countries.
- Dec. 26, 2003: A magnitude-6.6 earthquake hits southeastern Iran, resulting in 50,000 deaths.
- Jan. 26, 2001: A magnitude-7.7 quake strikes Gujarat in India, killing 20,000 people.