More than 1,500 dead as powerful quake hits southern Turkey and Syria

More than 1,500 people have died and rescuers are racing to pull survivors from beneath the rubble after a devastating earthquake ripped through Turkey and Syria, leaving destruction and debris on each side of the border.

One of the strongest earthquakes to hit the region in a century shook residents from their beds at around 4 a.m. on Monday, sending tremors as far away as Lebanon and Israel.

In Turkey, at least 1,014 people have died and several thousand are injured, according to the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD). In neighboring Syria, at least 592 people have died, including 371 mostly in the regions of Aleppo, Hama, Latakia and Tartus, according to Syrian state news agency SANA, which also reported 1,089 injuries.

The “White Helmets” group, officially known as the Syria Civil Defense, also reported at least 221 deaths and 419 injuries in opposition-controlled areas of northwestern Syria. Much of northwestern Syria, which borders Turkey, is controlled by anti-government forces amid a bloody civil war that began in 2011.

The epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude quake was 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers (14.9 miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Around nine hours later, a major aftershock that measured 7.5 in magnitude struck in Turkey, according to the USGS. That shock hit around 95 kilometers (59 miles) north of the original quake.

Video from the scene in Turkey showed day breaking over rows of collapsed buildings, some with apartments exposed to the elements as people huddled in the freezing cold beside them, waiting for help.

Monday’s quake is believed to be the strongest to hit Turkey since 1939, when an earthquake of the same magnitude killed 30,000 people, according to the USGS. Earthquakes of this magnitude are rare, with fewer than five occurring each year on average, anywhere in the world. Seven quakes with magnitude 7.0 or greater have struck Turkey in the past 25 years – but Monday’s is the most powerful.

Karl Lang, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech University’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, told CNN the area hit by the quake Monday is prone to seismic activity. “It’s a very large fault zone, but this is a larger earthquake than they’ve experienced any time in recent memory,” Lang said.