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Post Reports

Sifting through the rubble in Turkey and Syria

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.45.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2023

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria was so deadly and how rescue efforts are going.


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Early Monday morning, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked southern Turkey and northwestern Syria. The shock was felt as far as Egypt, leveling buildings and killing more than 7,000 people as of Tuesday afternoon. So far, rescue efforts have been complicated by frigid temperatures, and the earthquake has compounded other crises in war-torn Syria. Beirut-based correspondent Sarah Dadouch has been speaking to survivors and describes the devastation and what the aftermath will look like.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

A massive earthquake shook southern Turkey and northwestern Syria in the early morning

0:13.0

hours on Monday.

0:21.5

Homes and businesses collapsed to the ground with people inside.

0:25.5

By Tuesday afternoon, more than 7,000 people had died, and the death toll is expected

0:30.4

to keep going up.

0:36.1

Sarah Dadoosh covers the Middle East for the post.

0:38.7

I mean, it's horrific everywhere, and the images that we're seeing coming out from all

0:43.1

over the place are very, very, very, very scary, but some of the most hit parts in Syria

0:48.7

are its most poor and most abandoned area.

0:53.6

The aftershocks of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake vibrated across borders.

0:58.7

Sarah says it woke her up in Beirut.

1:01.4

I thought I was dreaming that I was about to die in an earthquake because it was so intense

1:08.4

and long, and this is what people kept repeating in their testimonies.

1:12.3

It was very long, and that was quite shocking.

1:19.0

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports.

1:22.5

I'm your guest host, Kim Bellware.

1:25.1

It's Tuesday, February 7.

1:27.1

Today, I talk with Sarah about the devastation the earthquake has left behind in Syria and

1:32.7

Turkey, and why the disaster is raising fears of a new humanitarian crisis in the region.

1:46.2

Sarah, can you describe the damage for us?

1:48.8

What does it look like on the ground right now?

1:50.9

In Syria, a lot of the damage that the earthquake caused was compounded by the fact that a lot

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