Turkey. Earthquake. The school volleyball team among the victims. They came to the tournament from Northern Cyprus

The volleyball team from the school in Famagusta in the northern part of the island, controlled by Turkish Cypriots, was in Adiyaman, Turkey, for a volleyball tournament.

The 39-person group included 24 children aged 11 to 14, ten parents, four teachers and a coach. They were in the hotel at the time of the earthquake. No one survived the cataclysm.

In recent days, further funeral ceremonies have been held in Famagusta, attended by hundreds of people.

Northern Cyprus is a small Turkish Cypriot state, recognized only by Ankara. It was established in 1974 as a result of the division of the island, which followed the intervention of the Turkish army in response to a coup d’état carried out by Greek-Cypriot nationalists. For years, negotiations on reunification have been conducted on the island under the aegis of the United Nations. So far no result.

According to the latest official reports, the violent earthquake that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria a week ago on Monday morning killed more than 35,000 people, including at least 5,900 in Syria, according to the WHO.

The epicenter of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria on Monday morning was in Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province. Less than 12 hours later, a second 7.7-magnitude quake occurred several dozen kilometers to the north. Both phenomena were accompanied by a series of over 100 aftershocks.

The affected region of south-eastern Turkey and north-western Syria is seismically active and tremors are frequent. However, the latter is the most powerful cataclysm of this type in this region in recent times. In 1999, an earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, killed 17,000-18,000 people. Measurements showed that the quake had a magnitude of 7.6.

The deadliest earthquake in the history of seismic measurements was recorded in 1976 in the Chinese province of Tangshan. The official figures of the authorities spoke of 250,000 victims. They were probably greatly underestimated, because some sources gave the number of people killed as high as 650,000. The earthquake in Tangshan had an official magnitude of 7.5, although other measurements put it as high as 8.2. In turn, the magnitude of 9.5 was the strongest recorded quake in history, in 1960, in Chile. More than 1,650 people died then.