we re talking breaking news out of turkey where a major earthquake has struck the southern part of the country. officials say the death toll has now risen to at least 17. the u.s. geological survey says the 7.8 magnitude quake was centered east of nadagi in gaziant. p province. officials say multiple buildings have collapsed not just in turkey but also in syria. an aftershock with a magnitude of 6.7 struck northwest of the initial quake about 11 minutes later. a local journalist tells cnn there were up to eight very strong aftershocks in under a minute. let s take you now to cnn s jomana karadsheh for the very latest. more details coming in, jomana? reporter: we are starting to get more and more information, leila, coming from different parts of the country. we heard from the turkish interior minister saying they are getting reports from many places. at least ten provinces across southeastern turkey have been impacted by this major 7.8 magnitude earthquake. according to the
this is cnn breaking news welcome to our viewers joining us in the united states and around world, we continue tracking in the middle east this hour, a major earthquake killed hundreds in sierra and turkey and the death toll is rising quickly, syrian report at least 237 people died in sierra and 600 injured in an unknown number could be trapped under rubble. we just got this video of a rescuer carrying an injured child away from the rubble of a damaged building, a group known as the syrian self-defense declared the northwestern part of syria disaster area, dozens buildings collapsed both countries. at least 76 people reported dead in turkey and more than 400 injured. emergency workers are asking for silence so they can hear if trapped under the rubble. the governor said nearly how to search and rescuers are headed to the impact region and turkey s disaster and emergency management agency is calling for international support. the u.s. geological survey said the epicenter of
turkey has in terms of earth moving equipment. these are the critical hour, speed is of essence when you re trying to find survivors under the rubble. yes, so i will just tell you what we re seeing in the videos that we have from gaz iantep, one showed large pieces of equipment trying to move rubble out of the way, this is a delicate operation, some of the videos we re seeing it s difficult to imagine frankly how anyone could have possibly survived something like that, some cases looks like the building completely pancaked on to itself floor after floor, other places looks like space perhaps someone could be trapped underneath and we re seeing rescue efforts and people trying to pull people out, but put putting themselves in an enormous amount of danger as well, sort of crawling into spaces where you have a slafb concrete on top of you trying to get to anyone who might be under
being felt now will hopefully become less and less frequently and also at smaller magnitudes over time. karl lang, thank you very much for joining us. thank you. and a little while ago i spoke with ayed kurdi who is a journalist living in turkey and he says when the quake struck he was most concerned about his parents. people are on the streets still, staying in open areas. there s rain happening now in my neighborhood where i live, neighbors went back to the building. at 4:19 a.m. the earthquake started. i was awake at the time. for the first three seconds it was like a light shake. so i thought yeah, maybe it s just one of those light earthquakes that we see normally every 12 months in gaz iantep.