Many countries are sending money, medicine and helpers to Turkey (also known as Turkiye) and Syria in the Middle East.
That is because on February 6, an earthquake struck the area, causing damage to buildings and injuring people.
Now, people in the area and groups around the world are helping those affected by the disaster. More than 8,000 people have been saved from the rubble so far and that number is going up quickly.
Many organizations are supplying aid to the people who live in the area affected by the earthquake. The Red Cross, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and UNICEF (the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) are just a few of the many agencies that are sending money, equipment and people, to help.
This earthquake had a magnitude of 7.8. (That is how earthquakes are measured in terms of how bad they are.) A 7.8 earthquake is unusually big. It stretched over 100 kilometres.
Earthquakes happen all over the world, and many times each year, but often they are small and only cause minimal damage. Larger earthquakes can cause buildings to collapse. Those earthquakes are rare.
A tremor of 2.5 or less usually cannot be felt by most people, but can be detected by special equipment. Earthquakes of up to five are felt and can cause relatively minor damage.
Earthquakes can affect the area around Türkiye and Syria because it is near a fault line, an underground break in the Earth’s crust.
THINK & DISCUSS
How are earthquakes measured? What in the article helped you know that? What questions do you have about how scientists measure earthquakes?
What kinds of things do you think people affected by an earthquake might need?
This article mentions a few organizations that help in situations like this. Can you think of some others?
This TKN article gives two spellings for Turkey/Türkiye. That is because in 2021, the country’s president, Tayyip Erdogan, asked people to use the spelling Türkiye because that is its original name. (“Turkey” is what people who speak English have typically called the country.) Here is a link to an NPR article with more information about this: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147704945/the-state-department-will-begin-spelling-turkey-as-turkiye. After you’ve read the article, discuss: how do you feel about “Anglicized” place names? Do you think people should use the original name of a place, or one that has been changed for English speakers?
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