•Buhari, world leaders mourn
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has extended Nigeria’s sympathy and solidarity to the governments and people of Turkey and Syria over the earthquakes that have claimed thousands of lives in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep.
As of the time of going to press last night, 3,500 lives had been lost in Turkey and Syria to the devastating earthquakes, which struck in the early hours of yesterday.
Also, a small earthquake rumbled through western New York early yesterday, alarming people in a region unaccustomed to such shaking but apparently causing no significant damage.
The United States (U.S.) Geological Survey preliminarily reported a 3.8 earthquake centered east of Buffalo in the suburb of West Seneca at about 6.15am. Seismologist Yaareb Altaweel said it matched the intensity of the strongest earthquake the region has seen in 40 years of available records — a 3.8 quake that was recorded in November 1999.
The shaking lasted a few seconds and sent residents first to their windows and then to social media in search of an explanation.
According to a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, President Buhari also assured the countries of Nigeria’s willingness to give support in any way possible.
The statement reads: “President Muhammadu Buhari extends heartfelt commiserations to the governments and people of Turkey and Syria, and those who lost family and friends in the devastating earthquake in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep.
“The President wishes those injured a speedy recovery and assures that the prayers and thoughts of Nigerians are with the many affected by this severe disaster and its aftershocks.
“As a steadfast friend to Turkey and Syria, President Buhari says Nigeria is ready to offer its full support in any way possible.”
Last night, hundreds of people were believed to be trapped under rubble, fueling possible rise in the death toll.
Rescue workers were searching mountains of wreckage in cities and towns across the area.
On both sides of the border, residents jolted out of sleep by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside on a cold winter’s night.
So far, the Turkish government has received offers of assistance from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the European Union, and 45 countries, including embattled Ukraine.
The Greek Head of Government Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that Greece would help immediately in spite of tensions between his country and Turkey.
Mitsotakis said Greece had rescue teams with extensive experience in earthquake-hit regions. The two NATO members had helped each other during major earthquakes in Turkey and Greece in 1999.
Italy’s civil defence also offered help, according to the government.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was following the situation in the disaster area, expressing sympathy to those affected.
According to the President of the country’s disaster management agency, besides, the deaths recorded in 10 Turkish provinces, 8,500 people were injured.
The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed past 430 people, with some 1,280 injured, according to the health ministry.
In the country’s rebel-held North-west, groups that operate there said the death toll was at least 380, with many hundreds more injured.
Buildings were reduced to piles of pancaked floors, and major aftershocks or new quakes, including one nearly as strong as the first, continued to rattle the region.
Rescue workers and residents in multiple cities searched for survivors, working through tangles of metal and concrete. A hospital in Turkey also collapsed, and patients, including newborn babies, were evacuated from facilities in Syria.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “Because the debris removal efforts are continuing in many buildings in the earthquake zone, we do not know how high the number of dead and injured will rise. Hopefully, we will leave these disastrous days behind us in unity and solidarity as a country and a nation.”
The quake, which was centred on Turkey’s South-Eastern Province of Kahramanmaras, was felt as far away as Cairo. It sent residents of Damascus rushing into the street and jolted awake people in their beds in Beirut.
In the Turkish city of Adana, one resident said three buildings near his home were toppled.
The tremor 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 region 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.
The opposition-held regions in Syria are packed with some four million people displaced from other parts of the country by the fighting.
Many of them live in buildings that had been wrecked from past bombardments. Hundreds of families remained trapped in rubble, according to the opposition emergency organisation, the White Helmets.
Ibrahim al Haj, a spokesperson for the voluntary White Helmets rescue service in the countryside of Aleppo, told dpa, “We are in a disaster area, some of my family members are still under the rubble.”
The injured are mainly suffering from skull fractures, broken legs and arms, he said.
Hours later, there had been reports of major tremors in the affected region. The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre confirmed that a second earthquake of at least 7.5 magnitude hit Turkey.
The earthquake came as the middle eastern country is experiencing a snowstorm that is expected to continue until Thursday.
Turkey shelters more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees, according to data from Human Rights Watch.
Tremor hit south-eastern Turkey and north-eastern Syria yesterday morning. Both countries reported hundreds of fatalities and thousands of injuries
Erdogan said rescue teams have rescued hundreds of people from under the rubble of buildings flattened by the quake.