At least six people were killed when a major earthquake in the Aegean Sea rattled parts of Greece and western Turkey on Friday, leveling structures in the western Turkish province of Izmir and severely damaging several residential buildings, Turkey’s emergency management agency said.
The agency said at least 202 people were confirmed injured and rescue efforts were underway in a dozen buildings in Izmir. The full extent of the injuries and deaths is unclear.
Murat Kurum, the environment minister, said in televised remarks that there were reports of people trapped under debris, many of them in the Bayrakli neighborhood of Izmir, a province with a population of more than four million. Images posted to social media and videos aired on state television showed people being rescued from the rubble.
The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.0 according to the United States Geological Survey, was centered off Samos, a Greek island near Turkey’s coast, according to Turkey’s disaster management agency.
The quake was felt in Istanbul, about 200 miles northeast of Izmir, and in parts of Greece. But much of the initial damage seemed to be centered in the city of Izmir, a center for tourism and industry that is prone to earthquakes.
At least six buildings were destroyed in the city, Suleyman Soylu, the interior minister, said in a tweet, although the city’s mayor put the number of destroyed buildings closer to 20. Mr. Soylu said there were no initial reports of casualties from nearby cities.
The I.H.H. Humanitarian Relief Foundation said on Twitter that it had sent a 250-person search-and-rescue team to the area.
Footage aired by the Turkish news agency DHA showed at least one building flattened and people climbing atop the debris to shout for survivors in the rubble.
Images posted to social media showed panicked residents running into the street, many of them wearing face masks because of the coronavirus pandemic, and severely damaged buildings teetering. In one, it appeared that several apartments in a six-story building had collapsed in on one another.
One young man was pulled from the debris of a fallen building in Izmir and was quickly reunited with his mother, who embraced him.
“My three children were at home. I was not,” his mother told Haber Turk Television. “They are all fine, survived.”
Teoman Cuneyt Acar, a resident of Izmir who felt the quake, told Haber Turk TV that the tremor lasted for around 45 seconds.
Gulen Kurtcebe, who was at a market in the Kahramanlar neighborhood of Izmir when the earthquake struck, said that although locals were accustomed to experiencing earthquakes, “this was different.” Initially, she said, she thought she was having a dizzy spell, but then a woman nearby started screaming, “Earthquake!”
“At that moment we all started to run,” she said. “But I saw the trees — they were shaking. Elderly people fell down, some others stepped on them. We couldn’t go home. We are now at the fairground, as it’s the most spacious place.”
Cenk Hosfikirer, 32, was working at home in Izmir when the quake began.
“It was the biggest quake I have ever experienced,” he said, though he noted that no buildings in his neighborhood had collapsed. “The lamps swung and the apartment door opened. At that moment, I thought, ‘Am I going to die?’”
The impact in Greece
On the Greek island of Samos, residents poured onto the streets, with many posting photos and videos on social media showing the main port flooded.
Two text messages were sent out by Greece’s General Secretariat for Civil Protection using a European emergency alert system, with the “extreme alert” designation warning people on several islands in the triangle formed by Ikaria, Kos and Chios to avoid the coastline at risk of a possible tsunami.
An additional message was sent to residents of Samos urging them to remain outdoors in safe areas away from buildings. Photos from the island showed that a section of a cathedral in Karlovassi, the second-largest town in Samos, had collapsed.
The deputy mayor of Samos, Giorgos Dionysiou, described “scenes of chaos” on the island in comments carried by several Greek news websites. “People are panicking and have run out onto the streets,” he said. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
He said that several buildings had been damaged, mainly older ones, though he had no information about any injuries.
Greece and Turkey, currently locked into a bitter dispute that marks one of the lowest points of their bilateral relations in decades, have long shared the suffering unleashed by quakes.
But quakes in the area have also been the basis for years of improved relations. More than two decades ago, a set of devastating tremors that hit the neighboring nations formed an era known as “earthquake diplomacy.” The shared calamity reminded governments and citizens on both sides of the Aegean of their closely knit fates.
In August 1999 a major earthquake — 7.6 magnitude — in northwestern Turkey caused extensive damage, leaving more than 17,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
Greece responded instantly, by sending large search-and-rescue teams and organizing aid through nongovernment organizations and private citizens’ initiatives, including a major blood drive to help save lives across the border.
Within three weeks Turks reciprocated. A major earthquake hit Athens, which was badly affected because of its dense urban layout. More than 140 people were killed and property was severely damaged. The Turkish government quickly dispatched an expert search-and-rescue team to Athens, and phone lines to the Greek embassy in Ankara were flooded with calls from Turks trying to donate blood to help rescue Greeks, according to media outlets in both countries.
Foreign ministers George Papandreou of Greece and Ismail Cem of Turkey were credited with reaping the spontaneous, tangible expression of neighborliness and friendship in the following years, spearheading a series of “confidence-building measures,” a set of so-called soft diplomacy engagements centering around largely uncontroversial topics. The engagements nonetheless set a positive tone for the two men to engage on thorny topics that continue to dog the relationship between the countries to this day.
Niki Kitsantonis contributed reporting.
