deadliest earthquake – News Agency nabakhabar

Morocco earthquake kills more than a thousand as rescue efforts intensify

News Agency nabakhabar — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 13:00:10 +0000

Morocco’s deadliest earthquake in decades has killed over 1,000 people, authorities said Saturday, causing widespread damage and sending terrified residents and tourists scrambling to safety in the middle of the night.

The 6.8-magnitude quake struck a mountainous area 72 kilometres (45 miles) southwest of tourist hotspot Marrakesh at 11:11 pm (2211 GMT) Friday, the US Geological Survey reported.

Strong tremors were also felt in the coastal cities of Rabat, Casablanca and Essaouira.

“I was nearly asleep when I heard the doors and the shutters banging,” said Ghannou Najem, a Casablanca resident in her 80s who was visiting Marrakesh when the quake hit.

“I went outside in a panic. I thought I was going to die alone.”

It is the strongest-ever quake to hit the North African kingdom, and one expert described it as the region’s “biggest in more than 120 years”.

“Where destructive earthquakes are rare, buildings are simply not constructed robustly enough… so many collapses, resulting in high casualties,” said Bill McGuire, professor emeritus at Britain’s University College London.

Updated interior ministry figures on Saturday showed the quake killed at least 1,037 people, the vast majority in Al-Haouz, the epicentre, and Taroudant provinces.

Another 1,204 people were injured, including 721 in critical condition, the ministry said.

The ministry also recorded deaths in Ouarzazate, Chichaoua, Azilal and Youssoufia provinces, as well as in Marrakesh, Agadir and the Casablanca area.

‘Unbearable’ screams

Faisal Badour, an engineer, said he felt the quake three times in his building in Marrakesh.

“There are families who are still sleeping outside because we were so scared of the force of this earthquake,” he said. “The screaming and crying was unbearable.”

In Moulay Brahim village, in the mountains of Al-Haouz province near the quake’s epicentre, rescuers were searching for survivors in the rubble of collapsed houses, AFP correspondents reported.

On a nearby hill, residents began digging graves for the victims, the correspondents said.

Frenchman Michael Bizet, 43, who owns three traditional riad houses in Marrakesh’s old town, told AFP that he was in bed when the quake struck.

“I thought my bed was going to fly away. I went out into the street half-naked and immediately went to see my riads. It was total chaos, a real catastrophe, madness,” he said.

Footage on social media showed part of a minaret collapsed on Jemaa el-Fna square in the historical city.

An AFP correspondent saw hundreds of people flocking to the square to spend the night for fear of aftershocks, some with blankets while others slept on the ground.

Mimi Theobold, 25, a tourist from England, said she was with friends on a restaurant terrace when the tables began shaking and plates went flying.

Houda Outassaf, a local resident, said she was “still in shock” after feeling the earth shake beneath her feet — and losing relatives.

“I have at least 10 members of my family who died… I can hardly believe it, as I was with them no more than two days ago,” she said.

The interior ministry said authorities have “mobilised all the necessary resources to intervene and help the affected areas”.

The regional blood transfusion centre in Marrakesh called on residents to donate blood for those injured.

The army has set up a field hospital in Moulay Brahim and deployed “significant human and logistical resources” to support search and rescue efforts in Al-Haouz, state news agency MAP said.

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After massive Turkey quakes, Istanbul residents fear the next one

News Agency nabakhabar — Sat, 11 Feb 2023 21:43:21 +0000

As Turkey reels from its deadliest earthquake in decades, some residents of Istanbul have already turned their growing anxiety elsewhere – toward the next big quake.

“We live in distress,” said Aysegul Rahvanci, a lifetime Istanbul resident, of her fears about a possible strong earthquake in the city.

“Our life equals to anxiety.”

Many people living in Turkey’s largest city shared Rahvanci’s feelings, in particular following the massive earthquakes – with magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.6 – on Monday that killed more than 21,000 people and wounded more than 80,000 others in southeastern Turkey as of Saturday. Thousands of others were killed in Syria. Officials said they expect the death toll to continue to rise.

The country is particularly prone to earthquakes, as it lies in an area where several tectonic plates meet. Quakes usually occur along the boundaries between plates. The North Anatolian Fault, which divides the Eurasian and Anatolian plates, runs close to Istanbul.

According to Sukru Ersoy, a professor of geology from Istanbul’s Yildiz Technical University, the question is when a powerful earthquake will hit Istanbul, not if it will happen.

“With the data, we have on the past earthquakes, and through certain modelings, we can say that an Istanbul earthquake is near and we would not even be surprised if the city is hit by it today,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that it was impossible to know when the disaster would take place.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said in a recent interview that there were some 90,000 buildings that were highly vulnerable to earthquakes in the megalopolis with a population of some 20 million people.

The mayor said another 170,000 buildings were in the medium-risk status in case of a strong earthquake, according to research conducted by Istanbul Municipality.

After Monday’s earthquakes, more than 6,400 buildings have reportedly collapsed in southeastern Turkey.

Many victims are still thought to be stuck in the rubble of collapsed buildings across the region, as search and rescue efforts continue despite fading hopes of finding survivors.

‘Living in new buildings expensive’

Istanbul residents watched the news coming from southeastern Turkey in shock, knowing that experts have said an earthquake in Istanbul is highly likely.

Rahvanci, who lives in the Kadikoy district and works as a sales attendant, said she lives in a building that is approximately 25 years old.

“I cannot afford to live in a newer building as rents are very high in those,” the 41-year-old told Al Jazeera.

Zeynep Urs, who lives in a more than 50-year-old building in the Beyoglu district of the city, agreed, “I would consider moving to a newer building but it is currently very hard to find one with reasonable prices.”

“I generally trust my building, but I am not positive that it can handle a very strong earthquake. And of course, I have worried because of my building’s age,” Urs told Al Jazeera.

The government improved its construction regulations after a magnitude-7.6 quake hit the western part of Turkey’s Marmara region, where Istanbul is also located, in 1999 and killed some 17,500 people.

After that earthquake, the Turkish seismic design code was enhanced and in late 2000s, the Turkish government launched a large-scale urban transformation plan to replace the buildings unsafe for earthquakes with new seismically improved ones.

Both Rahvanci and Urs said that their buildings did not have the necessary document, the so-called “earthquake report”, showing that the buildings were in line with the new regulations adopted after the earthquake in the Marmara region.

[Al Jazeera]

Another Kadikoy resident, Ugur Kumtas, said that he partially trusted the safety of the building he lived in with his family.

The building’s construction was finished in late 2020 and it is built according to the new regulations, according to 57-year-old Kumtas, who works as a mechanical engineer.

“I feel 80 percent safe about the building I live in,” he told Al Jazeera. “The building might get damaged in case of a powerful earthquake, but I believe it will not collapse.”

Nonetheless, Kumtas expressed his worries over the risk of being caught by an earthquake in another building when he is out with his family.

All three Istanbul residents who talked to Al Jazeera said that they did not have any preparation for a possible tremor apart from having an emergency bag at home.

According to official data, there are 817,000 buildings in Istanbul that were built before 2000, which corresponds to 70.2 percent of all the buildings in the city.

New buildings collapsed

After the tremors in southeastern Turkey last week, some buildings that were built after 2000 collapsed. However, reports have said the majority of the damaged buildings were built before the year 2000.

Sukru Ersoy said that the majority of the buildings constructed after the 1999 earthquake across Turkey were in line with the new regulations and consist of improved materials.

“However, corruption is high in the construction sector in Turkey. And therefore, there were abuses,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that these happened particularly during building inspections in the past.

“And we see this in the earthquake in southeastern Turkey. Some new and luxurious buildings also collapsed,” Ersoy said.

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