Turkey-Syria earthquake ripped huge chasm in what was once an olive field near Antakya

ITV News Senior International Correspondent John Irvine reports from the "world's newest valley" in the village of Tepehan, Turkey

Words by ITV News foreign affairs producer Natalie Wright

After more than a week of covering the dreadful human effects of the earthquake in Turkey we decided it was time to see what impact the magnitude 7.8 had made on the earth itself.

We had heard of a rupture in the ground near the village of Tepehan in Turkey’s south-east Hatay province. The village is unremarkable; narrow streets with a few small shops and a mosque in the centre. Winding down the windows we asked a group of local men if they could point us in the direction of the crack in the ground.

As we rounded the bend we couldn’t believe our eyes. The land just seemed to end in a dramatic precipice, although it’s not until you see it from directly above that you can truly marvel at its scale.

What had been an olive orchard, practically identical to all the others in the agricultural land just outside the city of Antakya, had been ripped in two by the sheer power of the earthquake early last Monday morning.

The tear in the earth is almost 1,000 feet long, at places wider than a football pitch and you could even fit a 13-storey building into it without skirting the top. You can see olive trees which have fallen to the bottom of the rift and around the edges tens of thousands of years of geological history etched in the different shades of the rock.

Drone footage shows the extent of the tear in the earth created by the force of the quake

We met some local boys from the village who were peering over the edge of the crumbly new cliff. They described an almighty noise and light show that night, it scared them all so much that one boy told us they couldn’t even eat for two days afterwards.

Clearly still in shock looking at what is the world’s newest valley, the youngest of the boys pointed at the chasm and with a gentle shrug told us "I used to ride my motorbike across here, it was just a flat field".

As the towns and cities affected by this appalling natural disaster start the long process of clearing the rubble and remembering their dead, this corner of rural Turkey will keep a permanent and very visible scar.

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