A TV Reporter Was Live On Air When The Turkey Earthquake Hit & The Video Is Terrifying
It's one of the deadliest quakes in Turkish history.
ANews reporter Yuksel Akalan during an earthquake in Maltaya, Turkey.
A TV reporter in Turkey found himself in the middle of the story when a massive earthquake hit Monday, in a scary moment captured on video.
ANews reporter Yuksel Akalan was broadcasting live from Malatya, Turkey when the aftershock struck, toppling buildings and transforming the city in a matter of seconds.
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"As we were heading to the rubble to [film] search and rescue efforts, there were two consecutive aftershocks with a loud noise," Akalan said on air, per an NBC News translation.
"The building you are seeing on my left was brought down to earth. There is a lot of dust. A local resident is coming and he is covered in dust. A mother is taking her children [away]."
The video, which has since been posted online, shows the moment when the quake hits, sending the reporter and his cameraman running for their lives. You can hear grinding, rushing and scraping sounds as they flee.
Both of them survive and the reporter can then be seen stopping to help pull a young girl from the rubble after the shaking has stopped.
\u201cTV reporter runs as second quake hits Turkey while he's live on air.\n\nLatest updates: https://t.co/1RsQtzGLG2\u201d— NBC News (@NBC News) 1675692980
A disastrous 7.8 magnitude quake hit Turkey and Syria on Monday, leaving over 2,200 people dead and thousands more injured, Reuters reports.
Akalan was actually in the field to cover that quake when the aftershock hit, causing the damage shown in the video. Reuters reports that it was a magnitude 7.7 aftershock.
Turkey sits near two major fault lines, meaning the area is especially prone to facing earthquakes, as researchers pointed out online.
\u201cIn fact, without too much doubt, I think today's earthquake might go down as the joint largest - if not the largest - quake ever to be instrumentally recorded in Turkey. The previous largest event was an M7.8 quake in December 1939 in NE Turkey, close to the N. Anatolian Fault\u201d— Stephen Hicks \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddfa (@Stephen Hicks \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddfa) 1675648343
This is the worst quake that Turkey has seen since 1939 when it was hit by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that left about 30,000 dead, the New York Times reports.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the death toll will likely rise as rescue crews sift through the rubble.
"Because the debris removal efforts are continuing in many buildings in the earthquake zone, we do not know how high the number of dead and injured will rise," he said, per the Associated Press.