Istanbul/Demascus (HRNW) In one of the strongest earthquakes to hit the area in at least a century, a 7.8-magnitude tremor struck early on Monday morning and killed hundreds of people in Turkey and Syria as they slept.
The earthquake destroyed significant areas of major cities in a region where millions of refugees have fled the Syrian civil war, inflicting thousands more injuries.
By 9am GMT, 237 people had died in government-controlled areas of Syria, 147 people had died in rebel-held areas of the country, and 284 people had died in Turkey.
The death toll was anticipated to increase as emergency personnel and locals frantically looked for survivors in the ruins of demolished buildings in cities on both sides of the border.
Near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which has a population of roughly 2 million, the earthquake struck at 4.17 am local time (1.17 am GMT) at a depth of about 17.9 km (11 miles). The first earthquake was rated as having a magnitude of 7.4 by Turkey’s disaster management organization, Afad, who also noted that it was followed by over 40 aftershocks.