[ad_1]
Rescue teams rushed late into the night on Friday in a frantic effort to save people trapped under the rubble in the western Turkish city of Izmir, several hours after a major earthquake at sea Aegean will destroy several buildings and seriously damage many more.
At least 17 people died in Turkey and hundreds were reportedly injured. Two other people were killed in Greece by the earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.0 according to the United States Geological Survey, and was centered on Samos, a Greek island off the coast of Turkey.
More than 1,200 workers participated in the rescue efforts involving at least 13 buildings in Izmir, the third most populous city in the country with roughly three million people. Images posted on social media and videos broadcast on state television showed people pulled out of the rubble.
The earthquake struck just before 3 p.m. and caused panicked Izmir residents to take to the streets, many of them wearing face masks due to the coronavirus pandemic. Murat Kurum, Turkey’s environment minister, said much of the damage occurred in the Bayrakli neighborhood in Izmir.
Two teenagers were killed on Samos when a wall collapsed on them, the Greek state reported.
Izmir seems to have been the most affected.
The earthquake was felt in Istanbul, about 200 miles northeast of Izmir, and shook parts of Greece. But much of the damage appears to be in the city of Izmir, an earthquake-prone center of tourism and industry.
A young man was rescued from the rubble of a fallen building in Izmir and was quickly reunited with his mother, who hugged him.
“My three children were at home. I wasn’t, ”her mother told Haber Turk Television. “They are all fine, they survived.”
Teoman Cuneyt Acar, an Izmir resident who felt the earthquake, told Haber Turk TV that the shaking lasted about 45 seconds.
Gulen Kurtcebe, who was at a market in Izmir’s Kahramanlar neighborhood when the earthquake struck, said that although locals were used to earthquakes, “this was different.” Initially, he said, he thought he was having a dizzy spell, but then a nearby woman started yelling, “Earthquake!”
“At that point we all started running,” he said. “But I saw the trees, they were shaking. The elderly fell, others stepped on them. We couldn’t go home. Now we are in the fairgrounds, since it is the most spacious place ”.
In Seferihisar, a city near Izmir, a video showed seawater flooding a coastal neighborhood. Yasar Keles, a local official, said a woman in a wheelchair drowned when the waves hit.
“I saw five, six cars at sea and more than 50 yachts stranded on shore,” he told The New York Times in a telephone interview. Some of the boats, pulled from their anchors, had sunk.
Greece was also affected by the earthquake.
On the Greek island of Samos, residents also took to the streets, with many posting photos and videos on social media showing flooding in the main port. State television reported that two teenagers, ages 15 and 17, died after being crushed under a collapsed wall in the main city of Samos.
“Words are too poor to describe how one feels about the loss of these children,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece said in a post on Twitter. “In these difficult moments our thoughts are with their families and the unbearable pain experienced by the Samos who suffer.”
Samos’ Deputy Mayor Giorgos Dionysiou described “scenes of chaos” on the island in comments posted by various Greek news websites. “People are panicking and running into the streets,” he said. “We have never seen anything like this.”
He said that several buildings had been damaged, mainly the oldest ones.
When the earthquake occurred, Greece’s General Secretariat for Civil Protection sent two “extreme alert” messages to warn people on various islands in the triangle formed by Ikaria, Kos and Chios to avoid the coast at risk of a possible tsunami.
An additional message was sent to Samos residents urging them to stay outdoors in safe areas away from buildings. Photos from the island showed that a section of a cathedral in Karlovassi, Samos’ second-largest city, had collapsed.
Greece and Turkey have often shared the suffering caused by earthquakes.
Greece and Turkey, currently caught in a bitter dispute that marks one of the lowest points in their bilateral relations in decades, have long shared the suffering unleashed by the earthquakes.
But the earthquakes in the area have also been the basis for years of better relationships. More than two decades ago, a series of devastating tremors that struck neighboring nations formed an era known as “earthquake diplomacy.” The shared calamity reminded governments and citizens on both sides of the Aegean of their closely knit destinies.
In August 1999, a major 7.6 magnitude earthquake in northwestern Turkey caused extensive damage, leaving more than 17,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
Greece responded instantly, sending large search and rescue teams and organizing aid through non-governmental organizations and private citizen initiatives, including a major blood drive to help save lives across the border.
In three weeks, the Turks reciprocated. A great earthquake struck Athens, which was greatly affected by its dense urban fabric. More than 140 people died and the property was badly damaged. The Turkish government quickly dispatched an expert search and rescue team to Athens, and the phone lines of the Greek embassy in Ankara were flooded with calls from Turks attempting to donate blood to help rescue the Greeks, according to media from both. countries.
Foreign Ministers George Papandreou of Greece and Ismail Cem of Turkey were credited with reaping the spontaneous and tangible expression of neighborliness and friendship in the years that followed, spearheading a series of “confidence-building measures”, a set of so-called soft diplomacy engagements centered around largely uncontroversial issues. Nonetheless, the engagements set a positive tone for the two men to engage in thorny issues that continue to haunt the relationship between the countries to this day.
Shortly after Friday’s earthquake, Mitsotakis offered his condolences to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. in a post on Twitter,
“Whatever our differences, these are times when our people need to be united,” he wrote.
A short time later, Erdogan returned the sentiment, with your own post offering condolences to Greece and noting that Turkey was also ready to “help Greece heal its wounds.”
“That two neighbors show solidarity in difficult times is more valuable than many things in life,” he wrote.
Niki Kitsantonis contributed to inform.
[ad_2]
