At least 42 dead, 200 injured in Syria after earthquake: State media

At least 42 people have been killed in parts of Syria as several buildings collapsed after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that had its epicenter in southeastern Turkey, state media said.

“Forty-two deaths and 200 injuries have been reported in Aleppo, Hama and Latakia as a result of the earthquake in a preliminary toll,” state news agency SANA said quoting a health ministry official.

The earthquake hit southeast Turkey and Syria early Monday, toppling buildings and sending panicked residents pouring outside in a cold winter night. At least 100 were killed, and the toll was expected to rise.

Rescue workers and residents frantically searched for survivors under the rubble of crushed buildings in multiple cities on both sides of the border. In one quake-struck Turkish city, dozens pulled away chunks of concrete and twisted metal. People on the street shouted up to others inside a partially toppled apartment building, leaning dangerously.

The quake, felt as far away as Cairo, was centered north of the city of Gaziantep in an area about 90 kilometers (60 miles) from the Syrian border.

On the Syrian side of the border, the quake smashed some regions that are packed with some 4 million Syrians displaced from other parts of the country by the long civil war.

Many of them live in decrepit conditions with little health care. At least 11 were killed in one town, Atmeh, and many more were buried in the rubble, a doctor in the town, Muheeb Qaddour, told The Associated Press by telephone.

“We fear that the deaths are in the hundreds,” Qaddour said, referring to the rebel-held northwest. “We are under extreme pressure.”

In northwest Syria, the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense described the situation in the rebel-held region as “disastrous” adding that entire buildings have collapsed and people are trapped under the rubble. The civil defense urged people to evacuate buildings to gather in open areas.

Emergency rooms were full of injured, said Amjad Rass, president of the Syrian American Medical Society.

Source: AP/AFP