More than 72 hours after a series of high-intensity earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria – leaving over 16,000 dead, tens of thousands of buildings destroyed and large swathes of major cities in both nations flattened, Maxar Technologies has shared ‘before and after’ images of affected areas. These clearly show the large-scale devastation caused by the five quakes and over hundred aftershocks that hammered Turkey and Syria this week.
In Turkey the southern cities of Antakya and Kahramanmaras were among the worst affected; one visual shows dozens of tiny emergency shelters set up in a football stadium and what was once a bustling city block with many buildings and wide roads razed to rubble.
The first earthquake – 7.8 on the Richter scale – struck Monday near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which is home to around two million people. This was followed by another of 7.5 magnitude that hit the city of Kahramanmaras, and then a third, a fourth and a fifth.
Tremors were felt as far away as Greenland, Danish authorities said.
As rescuers race to save as many people as possible – experts have said 90 per cent of all those who can be saved are found within three days of the quake – heart-wrenching stories have emerged of men, women, and children saved from under rubble and debris.
“The first 72 hours are considered critical,” Steven Godby, a natural hazards expert at England’s Nottingham Trent University, told the Associated Press. “The survival ratio on average within 24 hours is 74%, after 72 hours it is 22% and by the fifth day it is 6%.”
Over 110,000 people are taking part in rescue efforts and over 5,500 vehicles, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers, and excavators, have been deployed.
On Wednesday, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan conceded ‘shortcomings’ after criticism of his government’s response to the earthquake, one of the deadliest this century.
