Powerful quake kills more than 1,800 people in Turkey and Syria. AFP Photo

ADANA, Turkey/DAMASCUS — The most powerful earthquake in nearly a century struck Turkey and Syria yesterday, killing nearly 1,800 people in their sleep, levelling buildings and causing tremors felt as far away as Greenland.

The 7.8-magnitude early morning quake, followed hours later by a slightly smaller one, wiped out entire sections of major Turkish cities in a region filled with millions who have fled the civil war in Syria and other conflicts.

It was not immediately clear how much damage had been done by the second quake, which like the first was felt across the region and endangered rescuers struggling to pull casualties from the rubble, often using their bare hands to remove masonry.

"We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home. Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I'm waiting for them," said a woman with a broken arm and injuries to her face, speaking in an ambulance near the wreckage of a seven-storey block where she had lived in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.

In Turkey, the death toll stood at 1,014 people, the head of its disaster agency said.

President Tayyip Erdogan said 5,383 had been injured but he could not predict how much the death toll would rise as search and rescue efforts continued. He added that 2,818 buildings had collapsed.

"Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night makes things more difficult," he said.

Live footage from Turkish state broadcaster TRT showed a building collapse in the southern province of Adana after the second quake. It was not immediately clear if it was evacuated.

In Syria, already wrecked by more than 11 years of civil war, the health ministry said about 430 people had been killed and more than 1,000 injured. In the Syrian rebel-held northwest, a United Nations spokesperson said 255 people had died.

In Diyarbakir, Reuters journalists saw dozens of rescue workers searching through a mound of debris, all that was left of a big building, and hauling off bits of wreckage as they looked for survivors. Occasionally they raised their hands and called for quiet, listening for sounds of life.

Men carried a girl wrapped in blankets from a collapsed building in the city. In Izmir, drone footage showed rescue workers stood atop a hill of rubble where a building once stood, working to lift slabs of masonry.

Footage circulated on Twitter showed two neighbouring buildings collapsing one after the other in Syria's Aleppo, filling the street with billowing dust.

Two residents of the city, which has been heavily damaged in the war, said the buildings had fallen in the hours after the quake, which was also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon.

In the Syrian rebel-held town of Jandaris in Aleppo province, a mound of concrete, steel rods and bundles of clothes lay where a multi-storey building once stood.

Raed Fares of the Syrian White Helmets, a rescue service in rebel-held territory known for pulling people from the ruins of buildings destroyed by air strikes, said they were in "a race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble".

Abdul Salam al Mahmoud, a Syrian in the town of Atareb, said it felt "like the apocalypse".

The casualty toll in northwestern Syria was expected to increase, a spokesperson for the UN office for coordinating humanitarian affairs in northwestern Syria said.

"We have been dealing with weather events and snowstorms but nothing on the scale of an earthquake of this magnitude. It just adds on to all the layers of suffering," said Madevi Sun-Suon, the spokesperson.

Worst quake since 1999

Erdogan said 45 countries had offered to help the search and rescue efforts.

The United States was "profoundly concerned" about the quake and was monitoring events closely, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Twitter.

The European Union has mobilised search and rescue teams for Turkey after the stricken country requested EU assistance.

Ten urban search and rescue teams from various member states will support first responders on the ground, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and EU crisis management commissioner Janez Lenarcic said.

The EU's Copernicus satellite system has also been activated to provide emergency mapping services, it added.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi voiced "solidarity" with those affected in both countries, saying the UN agency was "ready to help provide urgent relief to the survivors through our field teams wherever possible".

India said it would immediately send rescue and medical teams as well as relief equipment to Turkey.

Two National Disaster Response Force teams comprising 100 personnel with dog squads and equipment were ready to be flown to the affected area, the foreign ministry said. Teams of trained doctors and paramedics with medicines were also being readied.

Germany -- home to about three million people of Turkish origin -- will "mobilise all the assistance we can activate", Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, after speaking with the Turkish ambassador to Berlin.

President Vladimir Putin sent messages to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, conveying Russia's condolences and offering aid.

"We hope for a speedy recovery for all the injured and are ready to provide the assistance needed to overcome the impact of this natural disaster," Putin told Assad.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his war-torn country was "ready to provide the necessary assistance to overcome the consequences of the disaster."

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of Turkey's historic rival Greece, whose relations with Ankara have suffered from a spate of border and cultural disputes, pledged to make "every force available" to aid its neighbour.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg voiced "full solidarity" with ally Turkey, saying he was in touch with Turkey's top leadership and "NATO allies are mobilising support now".

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden, whose bid to join NATO is meeting Turkish resistance, tweeted: "Saddened about the loss of lives in Türkiye and Syria following the major earthquake. Our thoughts go to the victims and their loved ones."

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said France stood ready to provide emergency aid to Turkey and Syria. "Our thoughts are with the bereaved families," he tweeted.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Britain was sending 76 search-and-rescue specialists to Turkey, a minister added.

Iran is ready to provide "immediate relief aid to these two friendly nations", President Ebrahim Raisi said, offering condolences on the "heartbreaking incident". REUTERS/ AFP