Another powerful earthquake hits Turkey and Syria just weeks after disaster that killed 47,000 people

AT least three people have died and more than 200 injured after another earthquake struck the Turkey-Syria border.

It comes just two weeks after the region was devastated by a massive quake which left more than 47,000 dead.

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The quake with a magnitude of 6.4 was followed by a second, magnitude 5.8 tremor.

Today’s earthquake hit Turkey’s Hatay province which was struck by two quakes earlier this month.

The epicentre was in Defne, close to the Syrian border and just outside the city of Antakya, which was the worst-hit town by the first earthquake.

It struck at a depth of just 1.2 miles, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, potentially magnifying its impact at ground level.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said three people were killed and 213 injured.

Search and rescue efforts were underway in three collapsed buildings where a total of five people were believed to be trapped.

A number of buildings collapsed in the new quake, trapping people inside, Hatay’s mayor Lutfu Savas said.

He told NTV television that these may be people who had returned to homes or were trying move their furniture out of damaged buildings.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said at least eight people were hospitalised in Turkey.

In Hatay, police search teams rescued one person who was trapped inside a 3-story building and were trying to reach three others inside, HaberTurk television reported.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, is reporting six people have been injured in Aleppo from falling debris, while the mayor of Hatay says a number of buildings have collapsed, trapping people inside.

The disaster management agency, AFAD, meanwhile urged citizens to stay away from the coastline as a precaution against the risk of the sea level rising up to 50 centimeters high.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said the quake was felt in Syria, Jordan, Israel and Egypt.

Some media outlets in Syria’s Idlib and Aleppo regions that were badly affected by the new, 6.4 magnitude earthquake are reporting that some buildings have collapsed and that electricity and internet services have been interrupted in parts of the region.

The media outlets said many people fled their homes and are gathering in open areas.

Reports say a strong quake and further damage was caused to buildings in central Antakya, the capital of the province.

Other witnesses said Turkish rescue teams were running around after the latest quake, checking people were unharmed.

Muna Al Omar, a resident, said she was in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the earthquake hit.

“I thought the earth was going to split open under my feet,” she said, crying as she held her 7-year-old son in her arms.

“Is there going to be another aftershock?” she asked.

Ali Mazlum said he was looking for the bodies of family members from the previous earthquake when the latest one hit.

“You don’t know what to do… we grabbed each other and right in front of us, the walls started to fall. It felt like the earth was opening up to swallow us up,” he said.

Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Turkey that Washington would help “for as long as it takes” as rescue operations in the wake of the February 6 earthquake and its aftershocks were winding down, and focus turned to towards urgent shelter and reconstruction work.

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The two larger earthquakes that hit on February 6, which also rocked neighbouring Syria, left more than a million homeless and killed far more than the latest official tally of 46,000 people in both countries

The earthquakes caused tens of thousands of deaths and destroyed buildings and infrastructure.

The death toll from the quakes two weeks ago rose to 41,156 in Turkey, the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said on Monday, and it was expected to climb further, with 385,000 apartments known to have been destroyed or seriously damaged and many people still missing.

President Tayyip Erdogan said construction work on nearly 200,000 apartments in 11 earthquake-hit provinces of Turkey would begin next month.

Among the survivors of the earthquakes are about 356,000 pregnant women who urgently need access to health services, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA) has said.

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They include 226,000 women in Turkey and 130,000 in Syria, about 38,800 of whom will deliver in the next month.

Many of them were sheltering in camps or exposed to freezing temperatures and struggling to get food or clean water.

Just days ago a teenage girl was pulled alive from the rubble having been trapped for 248 hours.

Aleyna Olmez, 17, was found among the wreckage of a collapsed apartment building by rescue workers having survived for more than 10 days after the disaster.

NATO says a ship carrying 600 temporary container homes has left Italy and is expected to arrive in Turkey next week.

The military alliance has pledged to send more than 1,000 containers that will serve as temporary shelters for at least 4,000 people left homeless by the earthquake.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, who visited the quake-devastated region last week, called it the worst disaster in the alliances history.

Authorities say more than 110,000 buildings across 11 quake-hit Turkish provinces were either destroyed or so severely damaged that they need to be torn down.

The Sun Earthquake Appeal, which we launched to support the Red Cross, has now raised over £1million.

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