The destruction was centered in Turkey and Syria, but the effects were felt as far away as Israel.
The main quake of 7.8 magnitude was followed by another rated at 7.5 on the Richter scale, and hundreds of aftershocks.
Nearly 50,000 buildings are reported to have been destroyed, and current news reports show more than 40,000 people have been confirmed dead.
Search and rescue efforts continued for many days, but the length of time victims were buried and the brutal cold caused hope of finding more survivors to fade.
With several known fault lines, this area of the world is no stranger to earthquakes. But this one is the strongest to hit there in many years.
And it is one of the deadliest, although there have been earthquakes that have been even worse.
Several sources give the worst earthquake death toll since 1950 as 655,000 in 1976 in China.
Jesus tells us earthquakes will be one of the terrible disasters that will hit the earth before His return. “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows” (Mark 13:8).
Tragedies like this can and most often do happen without any warning.
A report by the U.S. Geological Survey, a department of the U.S. government tasked with studying the land, natural resources and earthquakes, has recently reported that no one can predict an earthquake.
“We do not know how, and we do not expect to know how any time in the foreseeable future. USGS scientists can only calculate the probability that a significant earthquake will occur in a specific area within a certain number of years” (“No, You Can’t Predict Earthquakes, the USGS Says,” NPR, Feb. 7, 2023).
Any one of us, if we happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, could be affected by events like this—even killed.
In the first few verses of Luke 13 Jesus mentioned two disasters with mass casualties in that time. One was caused when Roman soldiers were ordered to attack a group of Jews who were offering sacrifices, and the second was when a tower in Siloam unexpectedly collapsed, killing 18.
Jesus said those who died weren’t any worse sinners than those who survived—they were basically just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And He used those deaths to make the point that we need to be sure we are repenting, and looking to God for wisdom and protection.
The trouble is, men don’t often stop to think about the need for God’s protection until some disaster or tragedy hits.
In the first chapter of the book of Romans Paul describes the state of carnal man, refusing to accept and acknowledge the Creator—in spite of being surrounded by evidence of His creative power and genius!
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Romans 1:28).
The verses just before and after this statement are filled with the abhorrent moral depravity and complete lack of honor and character that is evident in men apart from God.
These verses so aptly describe the world in which we live—and it is only getting worse.
As terrible as the tragedy in Turkey and Syria is, it is a certainty that disasters like this will happen again. Disasters, natural and man-made, are going to continue, and they will take the lives of many more thousands of people before Christ returns.
I hope we mourn for those families, and pray for their comfort. But I hope as well that events like this cause us to stop and evaluate our own relationship with our Father, our need for His protection every day, and the whole world’s need for the return of Jesus Christ, and the end of disasters like this.