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Holy shit, 7.8 followed by a 6.7. That's going to be really bad
Since the link goes to an alert with no article behind it currently, here are a few news articles for your convenience:

Reuters: Turkey earthquake of magnitude 7.9 shakes central region, Syria
AP: Powerful 7.8 quake knocks down buildings in Turkey, Syria
Hürriyet Daily News: 7.4 magnitude quake knocks down buildings in southern Türkiye
BBC: Strong earthquake hits south-eastern Turkey near Syria border
Times of Israel: Strong quake knocks down buildings in Turkey and Syria; shaking felt across Israel >

lasted 40 seconds.  An eternity in earthquake terms >

I have a friend who was in the Northridge quake.  He actually saw the ground roll towards him, knocked him on his ass. >

I saw this happen in the Loma Prietta quake. I was playing flag football when it hit, and I watched the whole field just roll up towards me, wave after wave. It was surreal. >

I distinctly remember my middle-school Earth science teacher telling us about that, in the right conditions you can see the actual shockwave rollin up on you >

They don't call it soil liquefaction for nothing. >

Japan  earthquake March 11, 2011 Liquefaction >

That video was crazy. Even crazier when played in 2x speed so you can more clearly see the shifting. >

Syrian officials say that this was the biggest earthquake in the history of Syria. >

Absolutely devastating. >

I reside in Kahramanmaraş. I was about to sleep laying on my bed. İt felt like an eternity and I was pretty sure I was going to be buried under rubble. Took my cellphone on my hand in case they would find me easier. >

Are you and your family ok? >

Me and my family are OK. I'm a teacher in Kahramanmaraş and one of my colleague and his family are still under rubble. We are waiting for any help from other countries with search and rescue. >

What is the current situation in Maraş? There is insufficient info as I'm seeing, what happened after the explosion from the gas pipeline? >

Explosion happened in a village I think. We are all in the black as everyone else >

My thoughts are with you, holy smokes that must be terrifying. >

I am from Turkey. The news are saying that it impacted 10 cities, even in Malatya (which is not the center of the earthquake), there are over 140 collapsed buildings. In addition, it is currently snowing in some of these cities.
Edit (00.38 GMT-3): Correction on the total number of buildings collapsed. The vice president stated that there were 4758 confirmed collapsed buildings + they have not confirmed the status of remaining reported 1459 buildings. 14483 injured & 2379 people have lost their lives. In total, 7840 people saved from the rubbles up until this point.
Edit (23.25 GMT-3): 6217 buildings collapsed & 13293 injured & 2316 people have lost their lives.
Edit (22.55 GMT-3): 5606 buildings collapsed & 12068 injured & 1762 people have lost their lives. Appreciating all the international aid, wishes, and prayers. We were definitely not prepared for this disaster. Still, there are some locations that have not received any help (especially in Hatay), local people are trying to extract their loved ones from rubbles themselves.
Edit (18.50 GMT-3): 3471 buildings collapsed & 9733 injured & 1541 people have lost their lives. It is now dark in the area, and extremely cold.
Edit (13.42 GMT-3): Just had an afterschock with 7.5 (revised as 7.6) magnitude (Kahramanmaraş). Reporters are saying that more buildings have collapsed. I have no words, we are in absolute shock.
Edit (13.09 GMT-3) - Latest official numbers according to Erdoğan's statement: 2818 buildings collapsed & 5385 injured & 912 people have lost their lives, 2470 people were saved from the debris. Again, especially with the updated number of collapsed buildings, we can expect much higher numbers of casualties.
Edit (10.17 GMT-3): According to the first statement of vice president , 1710 buildings collapsed & 2323 injured & 284 people have lost their lives. Unfortunately, these numbers will seem to exponentially increase over time.
Edit (09.50 GMT-3) - after initial reports:
Diyarbakır - 7 buildings collapsed
Şanlıurfa - 19 buildings collapsed
Adana - 6 buildings collapsed (two of them have 14 and 17 floors, all occupied)
Osmaniye - 65 buildings collapsed
Gaziantep - 531 buildings collapsed (including historical Gaziantep Castle)
Malatya - 140 buildings collapsed
Adıyaman - 100 buildings colllapsed
We haven't heard from the actual center of the earthquake (Kahramanmaraş) yet. It is bad, it is really really bad. All of us are hoping for miracles and some good news. No news about Kahramanmaraş yet except horrific videos. There are also explosions/fires in the factories and natural gas lines in the area. >

There is no way those numbers are accurate right now, there is a video of Diyarbakır on Twitter and just in that 15 second video you can see at least 20-30 collapsed buildings. 
Numbers are not accurate right now, it is gonna get worse, prepare yourselves for the worst. >

The Gaziantep Castle, which has withstood over 2200 years of earthquakes and erosion is gone. Insane.
The aftermath videos from the populated areas are horrific, whole blocks are completely flattened. >

Gone? Like.. collapsed? I have a friend there and he told me it’s damaged, where did you read about it? >

Holy shit! >

Yeah the damage is kind of insane... So sad to see history destroyed like that >

Turkey has a building standards crisis in that many many buildings were constructed with functionally zero qualified oversight and this is probably going to be a major cause of many hundreds if not thousands of deaths. >

I read there is a legal loophole in which unfinished buildings do not get taxed, so buildings often are left in a "slowly if ever" finished state with exposed rebar jutting out the top... Maybe the builder moves on and just leaves it unfinished.  In the meantime people or shops move in to the lower floors. This sets a low standard for construction accountability at any scale. >


loophole in which unfinished buildings do not get taxed

If this is true, puts into perspective what kind of morons the lawmakers are >

I hadn't heard of this being a thing in Turkey but it's also a thing done in Peru.  If you pick any random streetview there the odds are good that you'll see a lot of buildings that appear to be unfinished >

Very big thing in Greece too >

Tax dodging overtook wrestling as the Greek national sport >

Was sleeping, my whole building started shaking EXTREMELY violently.
I live in greater Beirut Lebanon.
I cant imagine what it was like in turkey.
Also iam pretty sure a building collapsed in hamra st too >

Im in ashrafieh, i was asleep when my bed started to lightly shake, i thought it was yhe strong wind that was shaking my window and room, that was until the building started the sway the closet to be slammed open and my mom screaming my name. 
0/10 would not recommend >

I'm sorry, I know this is super serious, but your rating and recommendation of the experience made me laugh. I hope you and your family are all ok. >

Lol dw my dude, family is safe and sound >

Experience = 0/10. Experience with hummus = 3/10 >

Seeing reports of cell phone networks being down probably due to extreme surge in demand. Seeing so many tweets and instagram stories from people who are stuck under collapsed buildings asking for help. Super heartbreaking. >

Oh my god :( I can't even imagine the horror that they must be experiencing, especially knowing that they may very well be buried alive... >

some of these people are going to have to wait a whole week before getting rescued, maybe even 2 weeks. >

Rapid damage estimation using CATDAT for the Turkey Earthquake in the order of 11,400 deaths (Range: 3,200 to 25,900) with estimates of economic damage in the order of $10+ bn USD.
NEW UPDATE:
DUAL Earthquake ESTIMATE (Turkey-Syria) Mw7.7 + Mw7.5 and aftershocks: Risklayer CATDAT model using adjusted shakemaps + previous damage. Fatalities: 20180 median (Range: 5,200 - 48,500) Ec. Damage: ca. $20bn.  Much uncertainty due to occupancy, previous damage + trapped ppl.
Credit to u/imreloadin for their comment >

Holy shit 11,400 people died in 40 seconds!!? >

A second quake hit about an hour ago. Officials say it's not an aftershock. 7.5 magnitude, 80km from the first one's epicenter.  
It's going to be way, way worse... >

I currently reside in Baghdad, Iraq. 
The Earthquake woke me up from sleep, our entire apartment building was shaking.
We very VERY rarely feel earthquakes here, so for us to feel it that strongly, it must be insane. >

Baghdad is about 500 miles / 800 kilometers from the epicenter of this earthquake, for anyone wondering.
For American friends: it's roughly equivalent to a New York City earthquake waking somebody up in Charlotte, North Carolina. >

What the actual fuck. >

Gaziantep resident here. I literally got thrown off from my bed and woke with impact of hitting the floor. The building I am residing in is in good conditions, and luckily all residents got out. Currently staying in the car with my family. >

Damn man, that is crazy as hell. A 7.8 earthquake is really fucking serious. I imagine the death tole from this is going to be off the charts. Don’t go back inside, big aftershocks will probably be happening for the next few days. Some of those can climb as high as 5.0 and destroy buildings that are already heavily damaged from the 1st quake. Stay safe my dude. >

It was crazy. I can still remember the exact moment. Shelves of drawer next to my bed pounding my skin as earthquake causes it to opens and closes while I duck next to two of them in a fear I never felt before. >

Props to whoever constructed your building I cant even imagine how a structure stays intact while everyone inside is getting tossed around >

Some of the wall tiles were dropped, wallpapers and paint got ripped apart, but nothing more. We are staying in an apartment where the owner also lives in, so they didn't cut any expenses in safety. I feel lucky being able to evacuate this easily. >

It's not limited to Turkey. We forgetting the Surfside condominium collapse. >

fucking horror, to be plunged into darkness like that in the middle. >

Can't even imagine. It's cold. It's dark. EVERYTHING is shaking, and you hear people scream and buildings collapse? I donno if I would EVER be able to sleep again after experiencing that. >

Sadly a lot of days people wont sleep well. Earthquake PTSD is serious. I experienced a relative small earthquake (6.4) compared to this and I wasn’t able to sleep properly for days as we took dozens of aftershocks. People near the epicenter of our quake slept for months outside of their houses due to fear and we had relative few collapsed buildings. (Puerto Rico earthquake)
Doesn’t matter how many videos you watch, nothing prepares you to an earthquake and the sheer terror you feel in any of its aftershocks.
I rather experience a “12hr Cat 5 Hurricane” than a 25 second 7.0 earthquake. >

Oh my gosh I am so sorry you went through that.. I know my words offer little solace and like all of those afflicted by this one it will take a long long time to get over this trauma. >

Videos already appearing on Twitter of collapsed buildings
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video of earthquake
Video from people trapped under rubble asking for help on social media
Video of nearly an entire city block of collapsed buildings
Another video of multiple collapsed buildings >

That is horrible, that video is from Urfa, which is pretty far from the epicenter of the earthquake. >

I'm Lebanese and I confirm. It woke me up and I was shitting bricks, but We've had worse. I didn't bother leaving the house cause it's cold outside and I ran out of will to live. >


but We've had worse. I didn't bother leaving the house cause it's cold outside and I ran out of will to live.

This won't make sense to non-Lebanese, but yeah for me I didn't feel like walking down the stairs lol.
After you survive 2020 Port Explosion and have lived through this, something like this is just annoying if it hasn't killed you.
I think honestly tonight was the first time in my life I understood on a personal level why some people who are being killed but not quite dead kind of just lie there and give up.
The trauma can be so intense sometimes that you kind of just ignore the situation, and hope it either goes away or you'll be dead and won't care.
Grim shit, I know but I feel this.
Either way, I just feel so bad for the people who has lost loved ones to this. The pain is going to be fucking unbearable. >

Y'all have had a tough go of it. I visited Lebanon last year and despite everything I still found Lebanese people to be more friendly than most. >

Looking at the first videos coming up on Twitter, it looks like dozens if not hundreds of buildings may have collapsed. With it taking place in the middle of the night, most people were probably asleep in their apartments. It's going to be very, very bad. Absolute tragic. >


With it taking place in the middle of the night, most people were probably asleep in their apartments

Turkey has an early warning system isn't it? 
Here in Mexico, the early warning system can definitely wake you up in the middle in the night. >

But all you get is seconds, right? >

Depends on where is the earthquake located, but usually we get around 40 seconds to one minute. >

That's actually amazing. Here in Japan the early alert system is sometimes about 5-10 seconds early, but usually sounds during or after a shake. >

Well the thing is, most of the earthquakes comes from the coast, kinda far from Mexico City, that's why it can give you so many time. >

This could be the largest earthquake ever in the region: it's much stronger than the 526 7.0 earthquake that, along with the subsequent fire, destroyed Byzantine Antioch, and the 1138 7.1 Aleppo earthquake >

How can someone even know (or approximate) the size of those earthquakes? >

Seismologists take accounts from contemporary sources to determine the approximate epicenter. Then they use those accounts, and accounts of damage from surrounding areas, to compare them to damage reports from modern earthquakes to determine the magnitude >

geologists also input data from the earth shifts that are still visible >

I was gonna say, I'd imagine geology plays into this. There has to be evidence around the origin from the plates sliding, surely. >

4th level of alarm is declared in Turkey. 
Which means international aid is needed. >

Yeah this could very will be the largest earthquake in Turkish history, if not the most destructive >

Last earthquake of this size to happen in Turkey 20000 people died >

99 earthquake? >

Yea I believe the 1999 earthquake had more than 17,000 casualties. This one was even stronger than that >

1999 was near İstanbul though which is a lot more populated. >

Very true, but gaziantep area has around 2 million which is still a very highly populated area >

I didn't want to minimize the impact of this one just wanted to mention numbers may be less then 1999 due to location.
it is just becoming daylight in Turkey now so there will likely be a lot more news coming up soon, and I worry it will be all bad news. From what I read so far, there is a ton of damaged buildings. It will take years for impacted cities to recover. >

Woke me up in Cyprus.
Windows and doors shaking, ceiling lamps swinging.
If that’s how it was here, I hope everything is OK closer to it.
Edit: didn’t want to assume the worst in the moment but indeed everything is far from OK close to the epicentre. What a disaster. >

It's really blowing my mind that we have people from all over the region online telling their stories.  I know we're a lot more connected than we have been in previous decades but this is completely surreal hearing in from multiple countries about a shared event like this. >

Ice and snow are dropping in that area right now. It's not good for recovery ops. >

If it's any consolation, the sun is rising in the next hour and a half. It won't be much, but it'll at least be light and some warmth. >

More daylight to help retrieve people from rubble I hope. >

This is a worst case scenario in terms of location, depth, and strength. Can’t imagine the death toll, injuries, humanitarian crisis, and economic damage on either side of the border. They’re gonna need all the help they can get. >

A 7.8 magnitude strength , almost 20 km deep and located right at the border of three plate , that is definitely a recipe for a very big disaster >

Is that … are those city blocks of collapsed buildings?? That is horrific. >

Unfortunately yes.. probably hundreds or thousands of people trapped under the debris only in this video. 
It’s just a video from a single street in a single city.. dozens of cities are affected. I can’t and don’t want to do the math to estimate the total catastrophe. >

One single building has roughly 100 people living in it, so for every collapssed building you can see in this video, you can safely assume there are 100 people in it. So there are more than 8000 people trapped or worse, just in this video alone.
Source: I'm only 200 km away from the epicenter of this, so I woke up when it hit and I've been helping people in a very little capacity that I can. News will show you the collapsed buildings, but it won't show you the people who are shaken to the core, missing loved ones and they can't function because they are shocked. Nobody will sleep in their homes for the next few weeks, we will all sleep in our cars because we are scared. I am very sleep deprived and tired, I just want to sleep now. >

From the looks of it, the aftershocks are also coming in fairly sizeable. 6.7 and a handful of 5s via USGS.
It's going to be, and is, a mess. >

Got hit hard definitely felt like an eternity. 
Thought they were my last seconds got very lucky. >

They're in need of international help because of how horrible the damages are. Thousands have died most likely. Horrible to see. Hope they get all the help they need. >

We can't reach our friends in the quake area for hours and we learned from twitter that their building is collapsed. Started to think the worst... As far as we know from social media, there is no aid arrived over there. Weather situation get difficult this night and most of the planes are cancelled. We couldn't aid too. >

I hope for the best for them :( >

Thanks mate, fortunately my friends are found and healthy. I just wish that for the whole remaining people that are affected >

Glad to hear it! Much love from America >

Crap that is a strong quake for a strike slip. At around 8.0 you begin to see far less of near surface quakes like this and more from subduction zones. Only high 7s I can think of that were non subduction zones were the the one in China near chengdu at 7.9/8.0, Alaska 2002 7.9, northern South Island of NZ, 7.8. (Quakes measured by modern instruments, not estimates of historic quakes from before 1920s) >

How does depth affect the earthquake? how do these things work? this shit woke me up >

Usually the strongest quakes are in subduction zones. Where a usually oceanic plate is shoved under a continental plate. This is why almost all. 8s and 9s are in subduction zones. Like Indonesia 2004, Japan 2011. The energy buildup that a subduction zone is release is incredible. Subduction zone quakes are often deep, but when there are at a similar depth to this quake, you add tsunami effects. >

My Grandma lives in a Syrian coastal city called Latakia near the northern border with Turkey and they felt it hard, some buildings collapsed there as well... And now I have to worry about a Tsunami coming at them too? What are the odds of a big tsunami following this earthquake? I hope the international community steps in soon to help all those people in Turkey. >

Near-zero, if the other poster is right and the fault is strike slip (wrench). I haven't seen the data but we will assume he is right. In these cases the primary displacement of the fault will be lateral, not vertical. In my understanding, Tsunami generation relies on the vertical displacement at sea to create the potential energy, which is sent outwards as the sea surface returns to the equipotential surface. I'm a geologist but NOT a seismologist, so take this as an educated guess, not professional advice. >

Official from Malatya on Turkish TV right now telling that over 100 buildings are down in Malatya which is pretty far away from the epicenter. >

Magnitude 7.7!? Omg… Even in Japan, there hasn't been an earthquake that far since 2011. I pray for your safety.😢 >

Felt it in Lebanon too, it was strong.. >

I felt it in Baghdad, Iraq. It was the strongest Earthquake we had in decades. >

Unrelated but how is it living in Baghdad these days? >

Not that great to be honest. 
From a Socio-political side : Our government is extremely corrupt. religious fanaticism is on the rise while politicians are pushing to turn the country into a theocracy.
Inflation is on a quick rise as our currency is falling in its value. Income inequality, poverty rates, and unemployment are the highest they have ever been. Illiteracy is the highest ever. And our education and healthcare are a joke. Women rights are basically hanging by a thread, and LGBTQ+ rights are nonexistent. Most media is controlled by politicians or religious figures and are propaganda pieces. Non-biased media is non existent locally, and journalists get threatened and killed regularly.
From a safety standpoint : The police are either ridiculously incompetent or very corrupt. The country is run by multiple heavily armed militias that belong to multiple politicians and clergymen (all of whom dont get along well, and constantly clash). If you have enough money and the right connections you can basically get away with anything ( just recently someone was set free after stealing and smuggling BILLIONS of dollars to Iran). Terrorist attacks are becoming a rare sight, which is a positive. But political assassinations and intimidations are still very much common. And crime is rampant, especially in less affluent parts of the cities.
From a climate point of view : the last couple of years have brought increasingly record breaking heatwaves, droughts, and dust storms. Half the year is basically unbearable heat, which regularly reaches upwards of 50 C ( 122 F) and dust storms that can last for days on end. Water levels and rainfall levels are at their lowest recorded and agriculture is struggling (also because our government refuses to support local farmers in favor of importing produce from Turkey and Iran). 
So yeah, in conclusion, Living here is pure hell. And the country is suffering a massive brain-drain because of it as all intellectuals and the youth are immigrating (who can blame them) and the country falls deeper and deeper into irreversible damage because of corruption. 
I’m only staying here for now because i cannot leave my single, old mother alone. And since we live in a gated community in a rather affluent area, we are privileged to struggle less than our friends and family elsewhere, but its still hell! >

You are a thoughtful and kind person.  I hope you can weather this rough period in your life and care for your mother or convince her to immigrate.  Privilege only lasts was long as the guards are loyal and I hope that's long enough. >

Thank you so much for your kind words. 
And no matter what, i don’t have any regrets, my country has 40 million residents, most are kimd hardworking people. we are all in this together, And despite the challenges. We are living life as normally as we can, we go to work, we have social get togethers, we go to the movies and restaurants on the weekends. Surviving through it.
 i hope change is coming to this land eventually. And that peace and progress comes to everyone, in every country worldwide struggling with injustice, inequality, and corruption. >

❤️ from Brazil >

kayseri resident here, we didn't have it as bad as the other provinces, but it was still pretty violent and we're far away from the epicenter. i've been through many earthquakes in my life, hell i've slept through most of them but this was the worst one i've ever experienced. i was in the car, my dad drove all the way to kayseri's border and we stayed there for a while. i have relatives in malatya, luckily their buildings didn't collapse but their houses are absolutely ruined, and atp they're basically unlivable
update: another two earthquakes happened everything is so bad rn my apt is about to collapse im so scated >

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