The earthquake caused the collapse of buildings in the Turkish city of Izmir, killing at least 39 people and injuring nearly 900 others. The ensuing tsunami struck at least two Greek islands.
On Sunday morning, rescue teams rescued a man alive from a collapsed building. He had survived for 33 hours under the rubble of a collapsed residential building.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Izmir on Saturday night and pledged that his government would help victims who lost their homes obtain temporary housing and rent and begin construction of new buildings.
The epicenter of the 7.0-magnitude quake was a 250-kilometer-long fault line off the coast of the island of Samos, which cuts across the Aegean Sea. This sea is flanked by hostile Greece and Turkey. The earthquake was followed by hundreds of aftershocks.
Hours after the earthquake, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos made a rare phone call to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to express his condolences for the deaths and injuries suffered by Turkey. He later tweeted, “Whatever our differences, in times like these, people need to stand together.”
Kiriakos’s friendly gesture was reciprocated. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted in response, “Our two neighbors show that solidarity and support for each other in difficult times is more valuable than many things in life.”
The United States praised Greece and Turkey for their seismic diplomacy and offered to help the two NATO countries.
U.S. Assistant for National Security Affairs O’Brien said, “It’s good to see both countries putting aside their differences to help each other in difficult times. The United States also stands ready to assist.”
France also expressed its willingness to provide assistance to both countries, saying it “stands fully with Greece and Turkey.”
Although Greece and Turkey are both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, they may not be allies. The two countries are often at odds and distrust each other. A recent spat over energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean brought the two countries to the brink of war this summer.
The European Union and the United States have been trying for months to get the two sides to sit down and negotiate a settlement analysis, but their efforts have been ineffective. It is unclear whether the deadly earthquake will actually warm relations between the two sides.
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