The sheer scale of the devastation of the earthquake and its aftershocks can be seen in social media photos and videos posted by people in Turkey and Syria. Eyewitnesses have also been speaking about what happened. BBC News has been pulling together and verifying information.
The tremors of the main quake – which happened at 04:17 local time – were felt more than a hundred miles in each direction from the epicentre – across southern Turkey and in northern Syria.
Witnesses described being shaken from their sleep and running to their cars for safety from the damaged buildings.
“I have never felt anything like it in the 40 years I’ve lived,” said Erdem, living in the city of Gaziantep. “We were shaken at least three times very strongly, like a baby in a crib.”
BBC News has been piecing together what happened as the tremors struck and reverberated across Turkey and Syria – using personal testimony and social media posts which we have verified.
BBC Turkish spoke to earthquake survivors from different cities – all of them said it was the first time they had experienced such severe and long-lasting tremors.
Hundreds of buildings are reported to have been destroyed in the Pazarcık district of Kahramanmaraş, to the north of the epicentre.
Footage on Twitter shows an aerial view of the force of the quake in the city’s palm tree-lined streets.
One local resident Veysel Şervan told the BBC that many of his relatives were under the rubble.
“I barely got myself and my family out of the building. We were just coming out of the wreckage when we saw a person reach out through a small gap. The building collapsed on our friend who tried to save them. They have no chance of escape, it collapsed on them completely. We are in a very difficult situation.”
Videos have emerged showing large fires in southern Turkey, with people claiming the earthquake has caused gas pipelines to burst and burn out of control.
The BBC has verified one of the videos as being on the outskirts of the city of Hatay, around 170km from the earthquake epicentre.
Source- BBC
