Twin earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye and Syria — leaving more than 50,000 people dead, was the fifth-deadliest in the world since 2000.
Massive earthquakes of magnitudes 7.7 and 7.6 that struck the two countries on Feb. 6 were also some of the deadliest so far of the 21st century.
The earthquakes, which were centered in the province of Kahramanmaras, affected more than 13 million people across 11 provinces, including Hatay, Adana, Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Adiyaman, Malatya, Kilis, Osmaniye, Elazig, and Sanliurfa.
In neighboring Syria, the death toll has climbed above 5,800.
The world’s deadliest earthquake in the last 23 years was a magnitude 9.1 quake in 2004 that rocked Southeastern Asia and caused a death toll of more than 228,000 people.
On Dec. 26, 2004, the earthquake struck the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia and triggered a tsunami that affected countries all around the Indian ocean from Thailand to India. Around 2 million people lost their homes.
The second-deadliest, occurring in 2010 in Haiti, had a magnitude of 7 and resulted in the death of 200,000 people. On Jan. 12, 2010, the quake struck Port-au-Prince, the capital and caused great destruction.
It also left 300,000 injured and rendered 1.5 million people homeless, damaging much of Haiti’s infrastructure.
In 2008, the Sichuan earthquake in China killed around 87,000 and left 5 million homeless. The 7.9 magnitude quake struck southwestern Sichuan province on May 12. More than 5,000 children died, including a majority who were attending schools.
A magnitude 7.6 quake killed 79,000 across the northern areas of Pakistan and the part of Kashmir that the country administers. The earthquake, which struck on Oct. 8, 2005, displaced 3.5 million people.
Feb. 6’s back-to-back earthquakes of 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude in Türkiye and Syria were the fifth-deadliest. They were the biggest quakes in Türkiye since 1939, when a 7.9 magnitude hit the country’s eastern province of Erzincan and killed 33,000. The recent earthquake is unprecedented because of its geographical size and area which is large, as compared to previous earthquakes.
Source: Anadolu Agency