Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – The Syrian Ministry of Health announced that the death toll from the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and affected the Syrian governorates has risen to 237, and injuries to 639, while Turkey recorded 76 deaths and 440 injuries.
The Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority announced that 76 people were killed and 440 others injured in 7 states as a result of the “Kahramanmaraş earthquake”, which had a magnitude of 7.4 on the Richter scale at dawn on Monday, according to the official Turkish Anadolu Agency.
And the Syrian Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Ahmed Damiriya, had announced that the number of deaths in the Syrian governorates of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia as a result of the earthquake, which had its epicenter in southern Turkey and affected a number of Syrian governorates, reached 42, according to the official Syrian news agency SANA.
Damiriya said: “42 deaths and 200 injuries in Aleppo, Hama and Lattakia as a result of the earthquake are an indefinite outcome,” he said.
For his part, the Director General of the National Center for Seismology in Syria, Dr. Raed Ahmed, said that “the most affected (by the earthquake) are the areas close to the epicenter in Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo.”
Ahmed continued, saying: “There have been and will occur aftershocks, but they are much weaker than the strength of the earthquake that occurred. Citizens who left their homes on the roads can return to their homes if they are not cracked, because all subsequent aftershocks are weaker in intensity.”
Ahmed explained that this earthquake is the strongest the country has witnessed since 1995, according to the official Syrian news agency.
For its part, the Syrian Civil Defense Organization, known as the “White Helmets”, which is active in areas controlled by the Syrian opposition, announced the presence of residential collapses as a result of the earthquake and the presence of victims trapped under the rubble, which resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.
Lebanon was affected by the earthquake, as residents in many Lebanese regions felt the earthquake, according to what was reported by the official Lebanese News Agency.
