A magnitude 6.4 earthquake on Monday rocked Turkey’s southern province of Hatay and northern Syria, killing six people and sparking fresh panic after a massive Feb. 6 tremor left nearly 45,000 dead in both countries.
The AFAD disaster response agency reported the deaths, as well as nearly 300 hospitalizations, while in Syria the White Helmets aid group said that at least 150 people were injured in the Aleppo region.
The quake hit the Turkish town of Defne at 8:04pm and was strongly felt in the nearby city of Antakya.
Photo: Reuters
It was also felt in Lebanon and Cyprus.
Turkey’s disaster management agency wrote on Twitter that a magnitude 5.8 quake followed three minutes later, with its epicenter in the Hatay’s Samandag district.
“The road moved like waves. The building moved back and forth, the cars moved left to right. It knocked me off my feet,” said Mehmet Irmak, who works at a notary’s office in Antakya.
“Hatay is no longer a safe place. We could hear a lot of buildings collapsing,” said Irmak, who had been sleeping in his car for two weeks after the first quake. “We will wait for a new day, but I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Among the dead were three people who became trapped after returning to their damaged apartments to retrieve belongings, AFAD said.
On Tuesday, the organization said that it was sending 6,000 extra tents to the region to shelter those in need.
On a street in Antakya, Ali Mazlum, 18, told reporters: “We were with AFAD who were looking for the bodies of our family when the quake hit.”
“You don’t know what to do... We grabbed each other and right in front of us, the walls started to fall,” Mazlum said. “It felt like the earth was opening up to swallow us up.”
Mazlum, who has lived in Antakya for 12 years, was looking for the bodies of his sister and her family as well as his brother-in-law and his family.
The Syrian American Medical Society said that five hospitals it supports in northwest Syria received several people who had sustained minor injuries, some when parts of damaged buildings fell on them.
“My thoughts continue to be with the people of Turkiye and Syria, as they face the impact of new earthquakes striking the region this evening,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on Twitter.
UN teams there “are assessing the situation, and we stand ready to provide additional support as needed,” he wrote.
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