Turkey: Iskenderun Cathedral Destroyed By Earthquake

“A total disaster.” With this dramatic sentence to AsiaNews agency, the vicar of Anatolia, Mgr. Paolo Bizzeti, describes the earthquake that struck Turkey, causing thousands of deaths, also affecting neighboring Syria. The prelate is in Italy these days and is struggling to contact the faithful and collaborators in the region.

“The cathedral of the vicariate in Iskenderun [the Church of the Annunciation, a 19th century building] has collapsed,” he adds, “all the buildings are uninhabitable,” but so far “there are no victims” reported among the local Christian community.

The prelate is also president of Caritas Turkey and has already announced “the opening of a subscription” to help the local population. “The earthquake struck in the middle of the night; it was just after 4 a.m.” and this took most of the people who were sleeping in their homes by surprise. “The fear is great” for further, possible  strong aftershocks.

John Farhad Sadredin, head of Caritas Anatolia, who is also in Italy, is looking for a ticket to return to Turkey. “I tried to contact several people in the area,” he told AsiaNews, “but until recently entire areas were isolated and it was not possible to communicate by phone.”

“We have hosting about seventy people left homeless,” continues Farhad, “in a church and in the refectory” of the community, in the town that was once known Alexandretta: “the damage is serious and extensive.”

“Throughout the region the toll is very heavy, several buildings have collapsed and in one of them a member of our community in Antioch is missing. There are at least 200 collapsed buildings, they are trying to recover the victims. The wall and roof of the Syriac Church also came down.”

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, and was felt in other countries including Lebanon, Israel, and Greece by millions of people. In Turkey, the victim count continues to evolve: on the morning of the 8th, there were over 11,000 dead and over 50,000 injured. According to some experts, this earthquake could be the worst in the country's recent history, with at least 40 aftershocks already recorded.

“In Gaziantep, near the epicenter, the historic castle [from Roman times], one of the city's most famous symbols, has been destroyed and a state of emergency is in force throughout the country. In neighboring Syria, the number of victims have amounted to nearly 1,500 dead and more than 3,500 injured.

“We felt the earthquake very distinctly,” Msgr. Antoine Audo, Chaldean bishop of Aleppo and former president of Caritas Syria, told AsiaNews. “There are many deaths in Syria. . . there is damage in Aleppo, Tartus, Idlib and in many other cities there are collapsed buildings.”