Turkey and Syria earthquake live updates: more than 100 dead after strong 7.8-magnitude quake

On the streets in towns and cities across southeast Turkey and Syria, people have fled their homes to take shelter in cars, fearing aftershocks and more collapsed buildings.

Rescue workers and residents are still frantically searching for survivors under the rubble of crushed buildings in multiple cities on both sides of the border.

In one quake-struck Turkish city, dozens pulled away chunks of concrete and twisted metal. People on the street shouted up to others inside a partially toppled apartment building, leaning dangerously.

Residents in the town of Pazarcık said they feared for those trapped under fallen buildings. Nihat Altundağ said the powerful shocks from the earthquake woke his family.

Our house looks solid from the outside but there are cracks inside. There are destroyed buildings around me, there are houses on fire. There are buildings that are cracking. A building collapsed just 200 meters away from where I am now. Thank god, our friends are safe, but we heard there are people who can’t get out of their homes and there are people we can’t reach…

We are waiting for the sun to rise so that we can see the scale of the earthquake. People are all outside, all in fear.”

State media showed frantic people across southern Turkey crowding into streets, amid warning from domestic emergency services that people could still be trapped underneath collapsed buildings.

It’s just past 8am in Gaziantep, Turkey, as we receive more information on the total number of deaths cause by a powerful earthquake this morning.

Turkey’s disaster management agency AFAD said on Monday that 76 people had been killed and 440 injured in the massive earthquake that reverberated through several provinces in the south of the country.

“76 of our citizens lost their lives in Adana, Adiyaman, Malatya, Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, and 440 citizens were injured in Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Adana, Adiyaman, Malatya, Osmaniye, Hatay and Kilis,” AFAD said.

At least 50 people have died in neighbouring Syria.

Forty-two people were killed in government-controlled parts of the country, state media said, while a local hospital told AFP that eight others were killed in northern areas controlled by pro-Turkish factions.

“Forty-two deaths and 200 injuries have been reported in Aleppo, Hama and Latakia as a result of the earthquake in a preliminary toll,” state news agency Sana said quoting a health ministry official.

Rescuers are continuing the search the rubble of collapsed buildings as the death toll is expected to rise.

As the death toll continues to climb, the latest figures released by Turkey’s disaster agency (AFAD) say 76 people have so far been killed while another 440 have been injured.

76 of our citizens lost their lives in Adana, Adiyaman, Malatya, Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, and 440 citizens were injured in Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Adana, Adiyaman, Malatya, Osmaniye, Hatay and Kilis,” AFAD said.

Several hours after the earthquake as rescue teams rush to find people affected, the scale of destruction is slowly beginning to take shape.

Local officials in Turkey put the initial death toll at 53, although it threatened to climb substantially higher because it caught most people while they were still at home asleep and many may still be trapped under fallen buildings.

Early statements by officials suggested the death toll was at least 23 in Turkey’s Malatya province, 17 in Sanliurfa, six in Diyarbakir and five more in Osmaniye.

South across the border in Syria, state media said 42 had been killed and 200 injured in Aleppo, Hama and Latakia as a result of the earthquake “in a preliminary toll,” state news agency Sana said quoting a health ministry official.

The earthquake has levelled dozens of buildings across major cities of southern Turkey as well as Syria with tremors felt as far away as Ankara and the island of Cyprus.

We are receiving some more information from Malatya, a city in eastern Turkey hit by today’s earthquake.

According to the regional governor, and as cited by Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, 23 people have been killed in the city, another 420 injured and 140 buildings collapsed.

At least eight people have died in north Syria, according to a hospital in the region.

“Eight people have died in the regions of Azaz and al-Bab,” a source at a local hospital told Agence France-Presse, adding that the number is likely to rise as search and rescue operations are ongoing.

Major damage has been reported deep into northern Syria, an area that includes millions of people already internally displaced by war in areas with fragile infrastructure.

Members of the Syrian civil defence, a search and rescue service known as the White Helmets, shared video from the town of Salqin in the northern province of Idlib close to the border with Turkey, saying they had begun work to rescue people trapped under collapsed buildings.

Disastrous conditions, collapses in residential buildings and some victims trapped under the rubble as a result of the earthquake that struck northwest Syria today. Our teams are on the highest levels of alert to respond and rescue those trapped,” they said.

We are receiving some more information from Sanliurfa, the Turkish province east of Gaziantep where the quake’s epicentre was located.

Governor Salih Ayhan reported that at least 15 people were killed and another 30 injured in the province in an interview with Turkish broadcaster CNN Turk.