February 7, 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake news

Our live coverage of the quake and rescue efforts in Turkey and Syria has moved here.

Mesut Hancer holds the hand of his 15-year-old daughter Irmak, who died in the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, close to the quake's epicentre, the day after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey on February 7.

Heartbreaking photos show a father in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, clutching the lifeless hand of his daughter after she was crushed under concrete in Monday’s devastating earthquake.

Mesut Hancer, sitting hunched amid the ruins, can be seen holding onto his 15-year-old child while her body remains trapped beneath the rubble.

Broken glass, destroyed furniture and twisted steel surround the family, as workers conduct a colossal rescue mission in near freezing temperatures.

Nearly 8,000 people have now been confirmed dead and some 40,000 others injured following Monday’s quake, according to officials in Turkey and Syria.

Survivors are still being pulled from the rubble more than 48 hours after the quake hit, crushing thousands under their homes.

The rescue of a 14-year-old boy in Kahramanmaras broadcast live on air on Tuesday offered a glimmer of hope that others will survive, but the death toll continues to climb as search teams navigate blocked roads, collapsed infrastructure and violent aftershocks.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared a three-month long state of emergency in 10 provinces as rescuers race against time in Turkey and Syria following Monday’s devastating earthquake.

As support arrives from around the world, the scale of the humanitarian crisis is becoming clearer and aid agencies are warning of the difficulties in both reaching survivors and treating the injured.

Here’s the latest:

Turkish flag flies at half-mast at NATO Headquarters after Turkey declared 7 days of national mourning in wake of deadly earthquakes, on February 6, in Brussels, Belgium.

NATO flags flew at half-staff at the defense alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday, following the deadly earthquake in Turkey.

In a Twitter post, the 30-member alliance — of which Turkey is a member — outlined its contributions to relief efforts.

NATO and its partners are providing assistance to Turkey through seismic experts, search and rescue teams with dogs, freighters, structural engineers, and medical personnel and supplies, according to a NATO news release.  

“At this terrible time, we stand in solidarity with our Ally Türkiye and with all those affected, and NATO Allies stand ready to provide further assistance to those in need,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said.  

Smoke billows from Iskenderun Port as emergency workers continue rescue efforts in Iskenderun, Turkey, on February 7.

The death toll from the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday has risen to at least 7,926 people, according to officials.

The Syrian Civil Defense, known as the “White Helmets,” said on Tuesday that the number of fatalities in rebel-held areas in northwest Syria rose to 1,220 and the number of injured people rose to 2,600.

Those figures are “expected to rise significantly due to the presence of hundreds of families under the rubble,” the group added.

At least 812 deaths have been confirmed in government-controlled parts of Syria, state media SANA reported.

In Turkey, at least 5,894 people are dead and 34,810 injured, Turkish vice president Fuat Oktay said on Tuesday.

An image tweeted by Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Relations shows a rescue dog and handler as they prepare to assist with rescue operation from the recent earthquake. 

Mexico’s famous rescue dogs are headed to Turkey following the catastrophic earthquake that rocked Turkey and Syria on Monday.   

Mexico is famous for its highly trained and specialized search and rescue dogs. The canines are used frequently in Mexico, a country prone to earthquakes due to its location at the edge of the North American tectonic plate.   

Julia, Ecko, Orly, Timba, Rex and July are among the 16 dogs who took off Tuesday morning from Mexico City and headed toward Turkey.  

Under the instructions of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a specialized inter-institutional urban search and rescue team made up of 150 people, which includes USAR-accredited personnel from the Ministries of Defense, Navy, and the Mexican Red Cross were dispatched Tuesday, according to a press release from Mexico’s Foreign Ministry.  

The team of dogs will land in Adana, a major southern city near the epicenter of the earthquake, according to the statement.  

Read more here.

Men unload supplies from an Algerian plane at an airport, in Aleppo, Syria, February 7.. 

The United Nations says nearly 70% of Syria’s population was in need of humanitarian assistance before the earthquake — an issue that has only been compounded by the tragedy.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim for Syria and the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis said:

The statement outlined the impact of Syria’s 12-year war, describing a country as “grappling with economic collapse and severe water, electricity, and fuel shortages.” The pair issued an appeal to all donor partners to “provide the assistance necessary to alleviate suffering.”

The UN and humanitarian partners say they are currently focusing on immediate needs, including food, shelter, non-food items and medicine.

In Syria, at least 1,832 people have died and another 3,849 people have been injured as a result of a devastating earthquake that hit Monday.

Avril Benoît speaks with CNN's Jake Tapper on February 7, 2023.

The clock is ticking and cold temperatures have set in as rescue teams search for survivors from Monday’s earthquake in Syria and Turkey.

Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders, said search and rescue is the most urgent need on the ground right now. Around 500 staffers with the humanitarian medical organization are working in the Syrian region — some of whom have family members who were lost in the earthquake, she said.

She said babies are still being born and Doctors Without Borders has had to redeploy staffers from other medical units to assist evacuated mothers and newborns.

“Sometimes you’re evacuating to facilities, other hospital structures that frankly don’t necessarily have the integrity – structurally – that you would want, ideally,” Benoît said.

Doctors Without Borders is working to provide “all the essentials” to those in need, according to Benoît.

Here are ways to help victims of the earthquake.

The death toll from the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has risen to at least 7,726.

In an update Tuesday, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said that at least 5,894 people are now dead and 34,810 injured in Turkey. In Syria, at least 1,832 deaths and 3,849 injuries have been reported.

At least 16,139 teams are working on search and rescue efforts, with additional international teams to be added, Oktay said.

Collapsed buildings in Islahiye, Turkey, can be seen in this satellite image.

Collapsed buildings, emergency vehicles and tent shelters can be seen in new satellite imagery of earthquake-hit towns in Turkey, revealing the damage from Monday’s devastating earthquake.

The images, captured by Maxar Technologies, show the towns of Islahiye and Nurdagi.

In Islahiye, dozens of buildings across the city have collapsed. In the city center, a group of residential buildings just west of the Hacı Ali Öztürk mosque appear flattened.

Islahiye, Turkey is seen before the earthquake.

To view more, click here

The road leading to the only humanitarian aid border crossing between Turkey and Syria has been damaged by Monday’s earthquake, hampering relief efforts, the United Nations said Tuesday.  

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary General António Guterres, said at a briefing the crossing is “actually intact” and continues to be used as a trans-shipment hub. However, he said the road leading to the crossing has been damaged and that’s “temporarily disrupted our ability to fully use it.”

The Bab al-Hawa is the only humanitarian aid corridor approved by the UN between Syria and Turkey.  

In January, Guterres described the land crossing as an “indispensable lifeline” after the UN Security Council voted to renew the cross-border mechanism a day before it was set to expire. 

When the magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey, its impact could be felt as far as Israel and Lebanon — hundreds of kilometers away.

The power of an earthquake is known as magnitude. On the magnitude scale, each increase of one whole number translates to 32 times more energy.

Turkey is no stranger to strong earthquakes. Seven quakes with magnitude 7.0 or greater have struck the country in the past 25 years – but Monday’s was one of the most powerful.

Here’s how strong Turkey’s quakes have been in more than 80 years:

German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom is making all phone calls and text messages from its network between Germany, Turkey and Syria free of charge until Feb. 15.  

The move aims to help the families of those impacted by Monday’s earthquake to stay in touch, as well as support ongoing search and rescue efforts on the ground, the company said in a statement Tuesday.   

The CEO of Deutsche Telekom, Tim Höttges, said in the statement that the company is “responding to the helplessness of so many of those affected not only with sympathy, but with concrete help.” 

He added that many Deutsche Telekom employees have relatives in Turkey or Syria.  

The company said it is donating 1 million euros (around $1.067 million) to an alliance of German aid agencies involved in relief operations after the earthquake.  

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, Germany hosts the third largest refugee population in the world, half of whom are from Syria. The country is also a home to the world’s largest Turkish diaspora.

Members of the Syrian civil defense, known as the White Helmets, transport a casualty from the rubble of buildings in the village of Azmarin in Syria's rebel-held northwestern Idlib province on February 7.

The situation on the ground following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that rocked Turkey and Syria on Monday is “more disastrous” in Syria, according to the country director in Gaziantep, Turkey, for the Syrian American Medical Society Foundation (SAMS).

“It’s a disastrous situation both in Turkey and Syria – although in Syria it’s more disastrous,” Dr. Bachir Tajaldin told CNN on Tuesday. 

Remember: Northwestern Syria, which has been impacted by the earthquake, has been struggling since the country’s civil war. Several parts, including Idlib, are still controlled by anti-government rebels.

Two women walk past debris in an area devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Ishinomaki, Japan, on April 7, 2011.

Turkey and Syria are reeling as the death toll continues to climb after Monday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake, with more than 7,000 people already reported dead across the two countries.

In comparison with other large earthquakes around the world, the 2011 Japan quake and tsunami – in which more than 22,000 people were killed or went missing – registered a magnitude of 9.1.

That incident left widespread destruction in its wake after walls of water engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways and caused the country’s worst nuclear disaster on record.

A year before, in 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti is estimated to have killed between 220,000 to 300,000. A further 300,000 people were injured, and millions were displaced.

In 2004, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9.1 struck the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, causing a tsunami that left 227,898 people dead or listed as missing and presumed dead.

The strongest earthquake on record was a magnitude 9.5 in Chile in 1960, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Turkey is no stranger to strong earthquakes, as it is situated along tectonic plate boundaries.

CNN’s meteorologist and severe weather expert Chad Myers said, “we always talk about the epicenter, but in this case we should talk about the epi-line.”

Two massive tectonic plates – the Arabian and the Eurasian – meet underneath Turkey’s southeastern provinces. Along this fault line, “about 100 miles from one side to the other, the earth slipped,” Myers continued.

Seismologists refer to this event as a “strike slip” – “where the plates are touching, and all of a sudden they slide sideways,” Myers said.

In a “strike slip,” the plates move horizontally, rather than vertically. “Why that matters is because the buildings don’t want to go back and forth. And then the secondary waves begin to go back and forth as well,” Myers added.

Because of the nature of this seismic event, aftershocks could last “for weeks and months,” according to CNN meteorologist Karen Maginnis.

One of Turkey’s more than 100 aftershocks, as recorded by US Geological Survey, measured at 7.5.

Soldiers work on the rescue operations in Hatay Turkey, on February 07.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Tuesday that around 7,500 Turkish soldiers are working in the earthquake region to help with rescue operations.

Akar also said there will be 1,500 personnel addition to the team on Wednesday. He added that 75 military aircraft were sent to the region. 

A total of nine commando battalions arrived in the region from the west and four commando battalions from Cyprus will come to the region as well, Akar said.  

The US team that will provide assistance to Turkey after the earthquake is expected to arrive in Adana, Turkey, tomorrow morning local time, the team leader Stephen Allen told reporters on Tuesday.

United States Agency for International Development’s Disaster Assistance Recovery Team (USAID DART) includes two search and rescue teams from Los Angeles and Fairfax.

The focus right now is on “saving lives” Allen said. US teams will “still be useful” and make an impact on recovering lives, he said. There is no other search and rescue team in Adana at this time.

Each of the search and rescue teams will have about 80 people, rescue dogs and about 170,000 pounds of specialized tools and equipment. Specialized equipment includes hydraulic saws for concrete, torches, drills and advanced medical capabilities, Allen said. US military assets are being used to bring the teams into Turkey, he said.

The canine teams will be particularly useful because the dogs will help sniff out survivors instead of people blindly digging through the rubble, Allen said.

There are about 20 international government search and rescue teams on the ground right now, totaling about 2,000 people, Allen said. Those teams are working with Turkish teams, and Turkey is defining the next steps of support that are needed.

Allen would not project how long the search and rescue efforts would take.

The aftermath of the earthquake is seen in Hatay, Turkey, on Tuesday.

The death toll from the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria is now at least 7,266.

Syria’s volunteer organization the White Helmets — also known as Syria Civil Defense — has updated the death toll in northwest Syria to 1,020 in opposition-held areas. As per Syrian state media, at least 812 people are dead in government-controlled areas. This brings Syria’s total death toll to at least 1,832. 

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said in a news conference on Tuesday that the death toll in Turkey is now 5,434. 

A man walks down the rubble of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on Tuesday.

At least 31,777 people have been injured in Turkey, according to Koca.

In Syria at least 3,849 people have been injured with at least 1,449 in Syria’s government-controlled areas according to Syrian state media, and at least 2,400 in opposition-controlled northwest Syria according to the White Helmets.

At least 35,626 people have been injured across both countries.

Women mourn next to bodies on the back of a truck in Jandaris, Syria, on Tuesday.

A baby girl who was rescued receives treatment inside an incubator at a hospital in Afrin, Syria, on Tuesday.

A baby girl has been rescued from the rubble of her home in northern Syria following Monday’s massive earthquake.

Her umbilical cord was still attached to her mother when she was found, a relative told Agence France-Presse. Her mother is believed to have died after giving birth.

“We heard a voice while we were digging,” cousin Khalil al-Suwadi told the AFP on Tuesday. “We cleared the dust and found the baby with the umbilical cord (intact), so we cut it and my cousin took her to hospital.”

A person watches as an excavator goes through the rubble of the building where the baby's family was killed.

The girl is now receiving treatment at a children’s hospital in the town of Afrin. Pediatrician Hani Maarouf told the AFP that she is stable but arrived with bruises, lacerations and hypothermia.

The baby is the sole survivor of her immediate family, according to Suwadi. They lived in a five-story apartment building that was leveled by the quake.

A doctor works while the baby lies in an incubator at the hospital.

People mourn over the bodies of a family and close neighbors who were killed in the building collapse.

A man carries the body of one of the baby's family members for burial on Tuesday.

Read more here.