At least three people died and hundreds were injured in another earthquake in south-eastern Turkey. Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter on Monday evening that 294 people had been injured, 18 of them seriously. Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said at least three people had been killed. Injured were also registered in Syria: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights counted 470 injured in the country on Monday evening, most of them in the Aleppo area.
According to the Turkish civil protection agency Afad, on Monday evening – 14 days after the quake that killed tens of thousands – two tremors three minutes apart shook the province of Hatay with magnitudes of 6.4 and 5.8. Afad called on people to stay away from the shores. The sea level could rise by up to half a meter. In Syria, houses collapsed again, injuries were reported.
Again people under rubble
The broadcaster CNN Türk reported that people ran into the streets in a panic and that the electricity in Hatay had gone out. Rescuers in the city of Antakya are working to free three people trapped under the rubble, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The mayor of Hatay warned that the series of earthquakes was not over yet. He called on Twitter to stay away from buildings that are in danger of collapsing. The state-run Anadolu News Agency reported that the state hospital in the coastal town of Iskenderun was being evacuated.
According to media reports, the earthquake was also felt in the surrounding provinces, in northern Syria, in Israel, Iraq and Lebanon. In several places near the city of Aleppo, houses collapsed again, said a spokeswoman for the aid organization SAMS. Among them is the small town of Djindiris near the Turkish border, which was severely hit by the earthquake two weeks ago. New victims have arrived in at least four of the organization’s clinics – including a child with cardiac arrest who could be resuscitated. It was initially unclear whether houses collapsed in Turkey.
Fear of more earthquakes
The rescue organization White Helmets announced that several towns and villages were affected in northwestern Syria. In several areas, house walls and balconies collapsed. The civil defense reported “several injuries” from falling debris, among other things. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that several people were injured by jumping from windows or balconies or by sudden crowding.
A resident near the Syrian city of Aleppo said the tremor was as strong as the one two weeks ago but did not last as long. “It frightened people and made them run into the streets,” said local resident Abdel Kafi. “Many people have left their homes and are roaming the streets in fear that more [earthquakes] will follow,” including in the Syrian capital Damascus, wrote UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokeswoman for the region, Rula Amin Twitter.
Early in the morning of February 6, a 7.7-magnitude tremor shook southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, followed hours later by a second severe 7.6-magnitude tremor. In both cases, the epicenter was in the southern Turkish province of Kahramanmaras. More than 47,000 people died, including more than 41,000 in Turkey.
Since the tremors, many residents in the region – as far as the buildings were still habitable – have been reluctant to return to their homes. Many slept in open-air tents or in cars for fear of aftershocks. Around 6,000 aftershocks have been reported from Turkey in the past two weeks.
