NEW DELHI: India on Monday said it will be sending rescue and medical teams to Turkey after a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake toppled hundreds of buildings and killed over 600 people in the southeastern area of the country close to the Syrian border.
Turkey earthquake live updates
The Prime Minister’s Office said that a meeting was held to discuss immediate relief measures and it was decided that India would dispatch “search & rescue teams, medical teams, along with relief material in coordination with the Turkish government”.
“Two teams of NDRF, comprising 100 personnel with specially trained dog squads and necessary equipment, are ready to be flown to the earthquake hit area for search and rescue operations. Medical teams are also being readied with trained doctors and paramedics with essential medicines. Relief material will be dispatched in coordination with the Turkish government and the Indian Embassy in Ankara and Consulate General office in Istanbul,” the PMO said in a release.
The meeting was chaired by principal secretary to the PM, Dr PK Mishra, and attended by the Cabinet Secretary, representatives of the Ministries of Home Affairs, NDMA, NDRF, Defence, MEA, Civil Aviation and Health & Family Welfare officials.
Expressing his anguish over the loss of lives, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said India was ready to provide all possible help to the earthquake-affected people in Turkey. “We are all looking at the destructive earthquake that hit Turkey. There are reports of the deaths of several people as well as damage. Damages are suspected even in countries near Turkey. The sympathies of the 140 crore people of India are with all earthquake-affected people,” he said.
Quake hits war-torn region
The quake, felt as far away as Cairo, was centered north of Gaziantep, a Turkish provincial capital.
It struck a region that has been shaped on both sides of the border by more than a decade of civil war in Syria.
On the Syrian side, the swath affected is divided between government-held territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Turkey, meanwhile, is home to millions of refugees from that conflict.
1/20
Powerful earthquake hits Turkey and Syria
Show Captions
<p>Earthquake hits Syria and turkey</p>
<p>The deadly earthquake in Turkey, which was felt in Syria, Lebanon and Israel, was the strongest recorded in Turkey.<br /></p>
<p>Buildings collapsed after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that had its epicentre in neighbouring Turkey, state media and a medical source said.<br /><br /></p>
<p>Rescuers rushed to search for survivors under the rubble of collapsed buildings in the pouring winter rain.<br /></p>
<p>AFP correspondents in northern Syria said terrified residents ran out of their homes after the earthquake struck before dawn near the Turkish city of Gaziantep.<br /></p>
<p>The US Geological Survey said the tremor occurred at 4.17am at a depth of 17.9km near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, reports the BBC reported.<br /></p>
<p><b>Addressing reporters, Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the 10 cities of Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Osmaniye, Adiyaman, Malatya, Sanliurfa, Adana, Diyarbakir and Kilis were affected.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>The fatalities were reported in the regions of Aleppo, Hama, Tartus and Latakia, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>The agency quoted Deputy Minister of Health Ahmad Damiriyeh as saying that emergency plans have been implemented in the affected areas and private hospitals have been ordered to receive all injured cases, reports Xinhua news agency.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>The earthquake had the same magnitude as one that killed about 30,000 people in December 1939 in northeast Turkey, Stephen Hicks, a research fellow in seismology at Imperial College London, wrote on Twitter.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>The Ministry of Transport announced earlier the suspension of train traffic on all railways as a precautionary measure, pending inspection of the bridges and tracks of the railway network.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>Authorities in the two neighbouring nations fear an increase in the death toll as many buildings have collapsed and rescue teams were deployed to search for survivors under huge piles of rubble.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>The initial quake was followed by another one measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale at 4.26 a.m., Xinhua news agency quoted Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), as saying.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>”No official numbers yet … but dozens reported dead and hundreds injured, many trapped under the rubble,” the force, known as the White Helmets, said in a Twitter message.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>Many buildings in the affected areas had already suffered damage in fighting during Syria’s nearly 12-year-long civil war.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>Turkey, a hotbed of seismic activity, sits on the Anatolian Plate, which borders two major faults as it grinds northeast against Eurasia.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>Israel on Monday said it was prepared to aid Turkey after a major earthquake.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>The president of war-torn Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has sent a message of support to Turkey to offer assistance.</b><br /></p>
<p><b>White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says he has told Turkish officials the United States is ready to provide assistance to help with the earthquake rescue effort. </b><br /></p>
<p><b>Expressing concern and shock over the massive earthquake that hit Turkey, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that India’s “140 crore people are with the victims of the earthquake in Turkey”.</b><br /></p>
The opposition-held regions in Syria are packed with some 4 million people displaced from other parts of the country by the fighting. Many of them live in buildings that are already wrecked from past bombardments. Hundreds of families remained trapped in rubble, the opposition emergency organization, called the White Helmets, said in a statement. Strained health facilities and hospitals were quickly filled with wounded, rescue workers said.
“We fear that the deaths are in the hundreds,” Muheeb Qaddour, a doctor, said by phone from the town of Atmeh.
Turkey sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999. The US Geological Survey measured Monday’s quake at 7.8. At least 20 aftershocks followed, some hours later during daylight, the strongest measuring 6.6, Turkish authorities said.
(With inputs from agencies)
Watch Watch: Major earthquake in Turkey, Syria kills more than 600 people, over 2000 buildings collapse
