evidence: A massive earthquake that rocked central Turkey and Syria has killed more than 4,800 people and injured thousands more, flattened apartment blocks and wreaked destruction on towns and cities in neighbouring Syria already devastated by years of war. [...] The magnitude 7.8 quake hit before sunrise in cold winter weather. It was the worst to strike Turkey this century. Its epicentre was close to the southern city of Gaziantep, and tremors were felt as far away as Cyprus, Cairo and Mosul. [...] In 1999, a tremor of a similar magnitude to Monday’s quakes devastated İzmit, killing more than 17,000 people. Erdoğan described Monday’s disaster as Turkey’s worst since 1939, when an earthquake killed more than 32,000 people and injured more than 100,000.