Strong earthquake hits south-eastern Turkey near Syria border
A powerful earthquake has hit Gaziantep in south-eastern Turkey, near the border with Syria, killing at least 17 people.
The US Geological Survey said the 7.8 magnitude tremor struck at 04:17 local time at a depth of 17.9km near the city of Gaziantep.Many buildings have collapsed, and there are reports of people trapped.Local Turkish officials say at least 17 people have died - but the death toll has been rising steadily.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleymon Soylu said 10 cities were affected: Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Osmaniye, Adiyaman, Malatya, Sanliurfa, Adana, Diyarbakir and Kilis. A BBC Turkish correspondent in Diyarbakir, north-east of Gaziantep, reported that a shopping mall in the city collapsed."I was writing something and just all of a sudden the entire building started shaking and yes I didn't really know what to feel," Mohamad El Chamaa, a student in the Lebanese capital Beirut, told the BBC.
"I was right next to the window so I was just scared that they might shatter. It went on for four-five minutes and it was pretty horrific. It was mind-blowing," he said.Rushdi Abualouf, a BBC producer in the Gaza Strip, said there was about 45 seconds of shaking in the house he was staying in.They said that a second tremor hit the region just minutes later.In 1999, more than 17,000 people were killed after a powerful tremor rocked the north-west of the country.
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