Turkish disaster management agency AFAD said Turkey has recorded 32 aftershocks following the twin earthquakes that struck Hatay region on Monday evening which was already recovering from the devastating earthquake that killed over 47,000 in Turkey and Syria on February 6.
Hatay'da 6.4 büyüklüğündeki deprem anı kameraya böyle yansıdı. pic.twitter.com/7pHPd0OvvR— TRT HABER (@trthaber) February 20, 2023
The twin earthquakes hit two weeks after the major earthquake and killed three people and injured 213 others. One earthquake of magnitude-6.4 struck Hatay’s Defne district around 8:04pm (local time) and the other earthquake struck three minutes later in Samandag district, also in Hatay.
“Three of our citizens lost their lives; one in the Antakya district, one in the district of Defne, and one in the Samandag district,” Turkey interior minister Suleyman Soylu was quoted as saying by Anadolu Agency.
He said search and rescue efforts are underway at three sites.
On February 6, magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes centred in Kahramanmaras, led to widespread loss of lives and livelihoods in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria.
Turkey’s Hatay, Gaziantep, Malatya, Sanliurfa, Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Kilis, Osmaniye, and Elazig provinces were severely affected due to the earthquakes and more than 13 million people were affected by the natural disaster.
In Turkey, the death toll has crossed 41,000-mark.
One person died in Samandag province following Monday’s twin quakes and two others died in Defne, according to a report by Reuters.
In Samandag, more buildings collapsed but residents told Reuters that most residents have fled the town. “I thought the earth was going to split open under my feet,” Muna al Omar, a resident of Antakya, was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.
She was in a tent in a park in central Antakya with her 7-year-old son when the quake hit.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said construction work on nearly 200,000 apartments in 11 earthquake-hit provinces of Turkey would begin next month.
The earthquake also has adversely affected Syria which was already impacted due to ongoing civil war which has been raging on for more than a decade. The United Nations said 4,525 people were killed in the northwest part of the country which remains under the control of anti-Assad forces and rebels who are waging a civil war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Syrian officials said 1,414 people were killed in areas under government control.
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