2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake

On 6 February 2023, a catastrophic and deadly series of earthquakes struck southern and central Turkey and parts of northern Syria. It occurred 34 km (21 mi) west of the city of Gaziantep at 04:17 TRT (01:17 UTC), causing widespread damage and tens of thousands of fatalities in the region. With a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent) and a magnitude of at least Mww 7.8, the main earthquake is tied with the 1939 Erzincan earthquake as the strongest recorded earthquake to hit Turkey in modern times, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the Levant and is the deadliest earthquake globally since the 2010 Haiti earthquake. It caused structural damage as far as Israel, Lebanon and Cyprus.

Quotes about earthquake

• Removing rubble, searching for victims and providing them with medical assistance in areas that have experience the most severe destruction.
  • Russia Sending Aid to Turkey, Syria After Devastating Earthquake (Updated: one day ago) - Russian Defense Ministry

• Regardless of which authority ordered it and their legal reasoning, it is certain that the government, including the president, is annoyed with the growing criticism toward them in terms of handling the aftermath of the earthquakes. [And with the general election in May, the] government is obviously not happy about this criticism and wants to control the communication.
  • Turkish residents struggle to access Twitter in earthquake aftermath (Updated February 8, 2023 at 10:23 p.m. EST Published February 8, 2023 at 6:06 p.m. EST) By Paulina Villegas and Naomi Nix - Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University

• ..this ruling party that has not prepared the country for an earthquake for 20 years.
  • Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader opposition party CHP Anger grows at Erdoğan over Turkey’s earthquake response (FEBRUARY 10, 2023)

• Their president offered them housing; our president laughed over the corpses of his people.

• • Mohammed a Syrian refugee in Turkey, according to Facing anger after quakes, Syrians in Turkey wonder again: Where do we go? (February 17, 2023 at 12:27 p.m. EST) By Sarah Dadouch and  Louisa Loveluck [paywalled source]

"Came to power with an Earthquake, Goes with an Earthquake"

Came to power with an Earthquake, Goes with an Earthquake - Can Dündar

• The venerable statesman Demirel used to repeat: "In politics, you go the same way that you came." Erdoğan came to power in the wake of 1999 earthquake... It looks like he'll go in the wake of the 2023 earthquake. This earthquake that has claimed thousands of lives will bury him in the wreckage. The one man regime he's created is crushed under the rubble. Driven by a greed for power, he has taken all the strings into his own hands taken control of every institution. Utterly intolerant of any objection, he is left surrounded by yes men. And the outcome? Turkey is in the grip of the worst catastrophe in its history; hundreds of thousands are screaming under the rubble; millions are trying to help; but with all the power in the hands of one man and the one man conspicuous by his absence as is always the case in any crisis, the state is paralysed.

• "We'll go to the Moon in 2023!" he had claimed; we can't even go to Maraş, Adıyaman or Hatay in 2023.

• Knowing all too well what he'd face if he went, he couldn't go to the disaster area in the first days; all he did was watch the devastation he has caused from his palace of eleven hundred rooms.

• You have suppressed screams with calls to prayer in mosques. You have prevented city councils from helping on the pretext of being the opposition. You did not call the military to duty for fear of a coup. You have worshipped concrete but failed to do even that properly. Where are your contractor partners you have made into trillionaires now? Countries you had declared to be enemies are now rushing to help the people; you, however, are absent. Thank to your incompentence, ineptitude, churlishness, you have left this nation all alone under the rubble at the hour of their greatest need; you have abandoned them to freeze. You will pay dearly; you will leave with the fury of this nation you have left to die. Scant consolation; too little, too late! Your plunder has cost thousands of lives. This period of "National Mourning" will be followed by one of "national rescue". Let's see if a single person will come to your rescue from under this political wreckage?