Death toll in Turkey, Syria earthquake surpasses 15,000

"We don't have a tent, we don't have a heating stove, we don't have anything. Our children are in bad shape," Aysan Kurt, 27, said. "We did not die from hunger or the earthquake, but we will die freezing from the cold."

Tragic, just tragic.

Govt is inutile, hope the international community would be quicker in their response

Heartbreaking. Let's get these folks the help they need. Come on, world!

This is really sad. Its often that the aftershocks are more deadly than the major quake. Hopefully this is a wake up call for stricter building codes in developing countries.

The dead are dead. Concentration should be on the thousands and thousands of injured and the plight of the displaced.

There was a 6.2 quake here in California in 1971 on February 9 of that year, it was terrible. I lived through it. Over 60 people died.

Interestingly, both the California quake of 1971 and the Turkey quake of 2023 happened early in the month of February, during the full moon, close to perihelion in Earth's orbit. The combination of the full moon and perihelion maximized tidal forces on the Earth, in the oceans, the atmosphere, and in the planet's crust. Sometimes I wonder if there is any kind of link between tidal forces on the Earth and the crustal slippage that we call an Earthquake.

The international community must come together to prevent more hardship and pain. There needs to be a stronger international effort to rescue people before they succumb to the elements and their injuries.

These were indeed monster quakes. Best wishes to the survivors.

Pretty horrifying. So glad to be in Japan where buildings constructed according to strict standards.

@glenn1

An interesting coincidence, but still a coincidence. The moon’s gravity, while strong enough to affect the water of earth’s oceans, likely isn’t powerful enough to go wrenching around something as massive as a tectonic plate. a recent study suggests there might be some interplay in smaller quakes, but this study is far from conclusive. This was simply the result of energy building up along the major fault lines in the area releasing all at once.

The heartbreaking images of broken-hearted survivors among the mountains of rubble should shock and shake us out of our self-centeredness and bring home with a powerful jolt the realization that all of us belong to one family called humanity and that racism and xenophobia can only be an afflictions of irrational folly that have no purpose in our 21st century global village.

Sometimes I wonder if there is any kind of link between tidal forces on the Earth and the crustal slippage that we call an Earthquake.

I lived through the same quake and remember it like it was yesterday. The sound! There are still fences and old roads where you can see how the ground shifted, the fence line has a bend in it or the road is displaced a meter or so. Up in Lopez Canyon you can still see the two meter tall scarp from that quake and there is a big hump in the road at that spot. It would be the first of several big quakes I would eventually live through as it turned out including more recently a M6.4 one morning followed the next evening by a M7.1 quake. I remember the discussion of tidal forces you mention in the aftermath of the Sylmar quake and am pretty certain the geological community agrees that the alignment and tidal forces you described can contribute to an earthquake.

This is really sad. Its often that the aftershocks are more deadly than the major quake. Hopefully this is a wake up call for stricter building codes in developing countries.

Turkiye isn't a developing country by any stretch of the imagination. They are an OECD member with the 20th largest GDP in the world

Here is some science on the subject of the effects of tidal forces on earthquakes.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.20551

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-astronomical-tidal-forces-trigger-earthquakes/

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-position-moon-or-planets-affect-seismicity-are-there-more-earthquakes-morningin-eveningat

US quit your pathetic sanctions against Sirya!!..

The US unprovoked and illegally invaded and occupied Syria to 'fight terrorism' the same way Americans unprovoked and illegally invaded and occupied the Capitol Building to 'protect democracy'.

The US insisted that all supplies for the area of Syria it occupies come through a border crossing with Turkiye rather than through Syria because it needed to make sure those it was there to actually protect, DAESH, got control of those supplies so it could exert control over the civilians.

That it has, thanks to the earthquake, become almost impossible to get any pplies into American occupied Syria and yet the US insisted that the blockade continue tells you something about the American government and the people who support that action.

The US insisted that all supplies for the area of Syria it occupies come through a border crossing with Turkiye rather than through Syria because it needed to make sure those it was there to actually protect, DAESH, got control of those supplies so it could exert control over the civilians.

Nope. The Russians are the ones who want to prevent any UN aid going into northern Syria from Turkey. They have been trying for years to get the one remaining legal border crossing closed. Some years ago there were two border crossings for UN aid but the Russians vetoed efforts to keep that one open. So far the other members of the Security Council have shamed Russia into not vetoing the periodic renewal of the authority to use the remaining border crossing.

Northern Syria is occupied by Turkish, not US forces, and their Syrian National Army (SNA) allies. The predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces control a small region to the northeast. The region around Aleppo is controlled by an Al Qaeda affiliate called HTS. HTS is trying to gain control of the Turkish and SNA controlled areas and Turkey has decreasing ability to control their encroachments. The US entered eastern Syria along with forces from other anti-IS aligned nations to take back land IS controlled. They are not involved in any of the dynamics between Turkey, the SNA, HTS and the Syrian and Russian forces to their south. There are some 900 US soldiers keeping IS from taking back the oil fields they once used to finance their wars, starving them of funds with which to buy weapons and pay fighters

The Russians have been trying to make the UN close the one route for international aid that Syria does not control, the route through Turkey. The Assad government wants to control the distribution of UN aid to reward allies and punish enemies. The UN has not allowed Syria to take control of that aid. Israel offered to send search and rescue crews to Syria and the Syrian government rejected their offer. They are only accepting aid from countries who are friendly to them. The US is not preventing any aid from entering Syria.

The US has a lot to learn from the Turkish people by the rescue of the baby still connected to the umbilical cord. That is how precious life is.