The 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes that struck the Pazarcık and Elbistan districts of Kahramanmaraş affected an area where 13,421,699 people live in ten provinces. The earthquakes caused the collapse of many buildings and the loss of tens of thousands of lives in Kahramanmaraş, Hatay, Gaziantep, Osmaniye, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Adıyaman, and Kilis.
The earthquakes, which caused extensive destruction in ten provinces, were described by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as “the disaster of the century.” Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's Regional Director for Europe, described these earthquakes as the worst natural disaster seen in the European Region in a century.
Natural disasters, terrorism, and war are defined as crises that disrupt the natural course of human life and have a negative impact on it.
