The death toll in Turkey has risen to 284, with 2,323 people injured, after a strong earthquake hit the country this morning, international media reports said.
“The death toll in Turkey has risen to 284, with 2,323 people injured,” BBC quoted Turkey's Vice President Fuat Oktay as saying.
Some have said this may be Turkey's largest earthquake on record - as strong as one that happened over 80 years ago.
Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at University College London, says the previous largest earthquake, also at magnitude 7.8, struck north-eastern Turkey in December 1939 and killed 30,000 people.
More recently, in January 2020, an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 hit the region around Elazığ, a city east of Turkey. It killed 41 people and injured over 1,600.
Raed Ahmed, head of Syria's National Earthquake Center, told a state radio station that this is the "largest earthquake ever recorded in the centre's history."
The quake was felt in the capital Ankara and other Turkish cities, and also across the wider region. A number of buildings have collapsed, and some people may be trapped. According to the BBC news report, the tremor lasted for about 45 seconds. (With inputs from Agencies)
