NNA - A major earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck central Turkey and northwest Syria, killing more than 500 people and injuring hundreds as buildings collapsed across the region, triggering searches for survivors in the rubble.

The earthquake struck at 4:17am local time (01:17 GMT) on Monday, as people were sleeping, at a depth of about 17.9km (11 miles). It was also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon.

Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay said 284 people had been killed and 2,323 people were injured, as authorities scrambled rescue teams and supply aircraft to the affected area while declaring a “level 4 alarm” that calls for international assistance.

Footage on broadcaster CNNTurk showed severe damage to the historic Gaziantep Castle.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Twitter that “search and rescue teams were immediately dispatched” to the areas hit by the earthquake. He also spoke by telephone with the governors of eight affected provinces to gather information on the situation and rescue efforts, his office said in a statement.

Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu said there had been at least six aftershocks and urged people not to enter damaged buildings due to the risks.

“Our priority is to bring out people trapped under ruined buildings and to transfer them to hospitals,” he said.

Videos shared on social media showed buildings reduced to piles of rubble in several cities in Turkey’s southeast.

Broadcasters TRT and Haberturk showed images of people gathered around destroyed buildings in the town of Kahramanmaras, looking for survivors. Other images showed people taking shelter in their cars on the side of snow-covered roads.

In Syria, already devastated by more than 11 years of civil war, a government health official said more than 237 people had been killed and some 600 injured, most in the provinces of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia, where numerous buildings tumbled down.

“The situation is very tragic, tens of buildings have collapsed in the city of Salqin,” a member of the White Helmets rescue organisation said in a video clip on Twitter, referring to a town about 5 km (3 miles) from the Turkish border. Homes were “totally destroyed”, said the rescuer on the clip, which showed a street strewn with rubble.

President Bashar al-Assad was holding an emergency cabinet meeting to review the damage and discuss the next steps, his office said.

State television showed footage of rescue teams searching for survivors in heavy rain and sleet. Health officials urged the public to help take the injured to emergency rooms.

“Wounded people are still arriving in waves,” Aleppo’s health director, Ziad Hage Taha, told Reuters news agency by telephone.

“This is definitely one of the largest earthquakes experienced there for hundreds of years,” Martin Mai, professor of geophysics at King Abdullah University told Al Jazeera. “Large damage and local devastation has to be expected,” he said.

“In the past, these earthquakes in Turkey have led to about thousands of casualties owning to building style construction and the sheer size of this event will have profound economic impact as well,” Mai added.

Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu in Istanbul said the earthquake was felt across Turkey from the southern cities as far north as the Black Sea. She added that cities like Gaziantep were crowded, not only with Turkish citizens but Syrian refugees.

“Some international help might be necessary,” she said, noting that poor weather conditions were making the situation worse.

“People are outside. People are scared, and it is very cold.”

Turkey is in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones – some 18,000 people were killed in powerful earthquakes that hit the country’s northwest in 1999.

There were also reports of damage in northern Syria.

The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, described the situation in the rebel-held region as “disastrous”, adding that entire buildings had collapsed and people were trapped under the rubble. They urged people to evacuate buildings and gather in open areas.

In Damascus, buildings shook and many people rushed onto the streets in fear.

The earthquake jolted residents in Lebanon from their beds, shaking buildings for about 40 seconds. Many residents of Beirut left their homes and took to the streets or got in their cars to drive away from buildings.—Agencies 

==========R.H.