Seventy deaths have been reported in Kahramanmaras, with the second-highest death toll.

Meanwhile in Syria, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put preliminary death toll to 320 for the whole of Syria shortly before 7 O’clock GMT.

Why earthquakes in Turkey

Turkey is a seismically active area within the complex zone of collision between the Eurasian Plate and both the African and Arabian Plates.

Much of the country lies on the Anatolian Plate, a small plate bounded by two major strike-slip fault zones, the North Anatolian Fault and the East Anatolian Fault.

The western part of the country is also affected by the zone of extension tectonics in the Aegean Sea caused by the southward migration of the Hellenic arc.

A UK researcher said that Monday’s quake had the same magnitude as the one that killed about 30,000 people in December 1939 in northeast Turkey.

In 1999, a record 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the country in 1999, killing more than 17,000 people.