Erdem was sound sleeping at his home in Gaziantep, which is located in southern Turkey, when one of the strongest Turkey earthquake that Turkey has ever seen jolted him up. The time was 4:17 local time.
He stated, “In the forty years that I have lived, I have never felt anything even somewhat comparable to that.” At least three times, we were violently rocked back and forth, just like a newborn in its cradle.
People fled the destroyed buildings by getting into their automobiles and driving away. Erdem speculated that there was not a single resident in Gaziantep who was currently in their house at that moment.
Nilfer Aslan was certain that he and his family would be killed when the Turkey earthquake jolted their apartment on the fifth floor in Adana, which was more than 130 kilometres to the west.
“In all of my years, I have never before witnessed something quite like this. We rocked back and forth for about an entire minute, “he said.
“[I told my family], ‘There is an Turkey earthquake, at least let’s perish together in the same spot…’… It was the only thought that occurred to me at the time.”
As soon as the shaking stopped, Aslan ran outdoors. “I couldn’t take anything with me, so I’m standing outside with my slippers,” he said. When he arrived, he discovered that four of the buildings that were surrounding his home had collapsed.
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People raced into the streets to assist rescue workers in Diyarbakir, which is located around 500 kilometres to the east.
A man in his 30s who spoke to Reuters described the scene as having “screaming everywhere.” “I used my hands to start removing rocks from the path. We helped pull the injured people to safety beside our pals, but the screams did not stop. The [rescue] teams eventually arrived at the scene.”
Muhittin Orakci, who lives in another part of the city, reported that seven of their family members were found buried under the debris.
He informed AFP that his sister and her three children were present at the location. In addition to that, her spouse, as well as her father-in-law and her mother-in-law.
A significant number of structures in Aleppo, which is located in Syria and is approximately a two-hour drive from the epicentre of the earthquake, fell.
As a result of the incident, the director of health services Ziad Hage Taha stated that injured individuals are “arriving in waves.”
