The 2023 Earthquake at Antakya

On 6 February 2023, in the month of Rajab 1444, two immense earthquakes struck within hours of each other across southeastern Türkiye and northern Syria, among the most powerful and deadly in the region in modern times. More than fifty-five thousand people were killed, the great majority in Türkiye and many thousands in already war-torn northern Syria, and hundreds of thousands of buildings collapsed across a vast area, leaving millions homeless in the cold of winter. Among the cities worst hit was the ancient one of Antakya, the historic Antioch, in Türkiye's Hatay province, where much of the old city was flattened; among its losses was the Habib-i Neccar Mosque, by tradition one of the oldest mosques in Anatolia, named for the believer of the town remembered in the Qur'an, which was reduced to ruin. A vast international relief effort converged on the disaster zone, with rescue teams searching the rubble for survivors in the crucial first days and aid agencies struggling to shelter and feed the displaced, the response complicated in Syria by the country's broken state and sanctions. This scene depicts the aftermath at Antakya in February 2023, the collapsed city, the ruined historic mosque with its broken minaret, and the rescue teams and relief camps among the rubble, framed soberly as the catastrophe it was.