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Three Indonesians injured in 7.8-magnitude Turkish quake, others evacuated
Three Indonesian residents have been injured and dozens of others displaced in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked central Turkey early on Monday, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
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Rescuers search for victims of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, leveling buildings across several cities and causing damages in neighboring Syria, as seen this still from an AFP TV video taken on Feb. 6, 2023. (AFP/Mahmut BOZARSLAN)
T
hree Indonesian nationals were injured and dozens of others displaced in the massive earthquakes that rocked Turkey early Monday, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
No Indonesian was killed in the string of disasters, even as the death toll was “expected to rise”, the statement said, though some residing in the province of Kahramanmaraş were relocated by officials from the local Indonesian embassy due to severe damage to their homes.
Early on Monday, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Türkiye, collapsing hundreds of buildings and killing at least 500 people, prompting Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to call an emergency cabinet meeting to review the situation and discuss next steps.
The tremor, which was also felt in northwest Syria, Cyprus and Lebanon, was the most severe in the region since at least 1999, Reuters reported.
The three hardest hit Turkish provinces were Kahramanmaras, some 600 kilometers southeast of the capital Ankara, Gaziantep and Osmaniye. The initial earthquake was later followed by two more, with Turkish authorities reporting that 16 structures had collapsed in Sanliurfa and another 34 in Osmaniye.
Foreign Ministry data show that at least 6,500 Indonesian nationals reside in Türkiye, out of which an estimated 500 live in and around quake-stricken areas.
The majority of Indonesian expatriates in Türkiye were students, employees of international organizations and spouses of Turkish nationals, the ministry said.
“The Indonesian Embassy in Ankara is coordinating with local authorities” in the three most affected provinces, Judha Nugraha, the ministry’s director for the protection of Indonesian citizens, said in a statement. “So far there have been no Indonesian deaths,”
Two of the injured Indonesians lived in the southernmost province of Hatay, while the third lived in Kahramanmaras, he added, and that all three had been taken to a hospital for medical treatment.
In the meantime, “the embassy is making an effort to set up temporary shelters for those whose apartments were damaged as they await further assistance from local authorities”, said Judha. The embassy was also continuing to coordinate with local authorities as well as the Indonesian citizens’ protection task force.
Witnesses in Diyarbakir, central Türkiye, told Reuters that the first tremor lasted for around 1 minute, shattering windows and leveling 17 buildings in the area.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Twitter that several rescue teams had been dispatched to the area: “We hope that we will get through this disaster together as soon as possible with the least damage, and we will continue our work.”
As hundreds of civilians continue to be hospitalized, the sheer magnitude of the disaster has prompted international actors, including the United States, to offer aid to Ankara.
“The US is profoundly concerned by today’s destructive earthquake in [Türkiye and] Syria. I have been in touch with Turkish officials to relay that we stand ready to provide any and all needed assistance,” White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan tweeted.
