Two new earthquakes, of magnitude 6.4 and 5.8, were recorded Monday evening February 20 in the Turkish province of Hatay (South), the most affected by the earthquake of February 6, which made more than 44 000 dead in Turkey and Syria, Turkish relief agency AFAD reported. There are at least 3 dead and 213 injured in Turkey, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu announced in the evening. Vice President Fuat Oktay had previously reported injuries to eight people, caused by falls from already damaged buildings.
An alert for risk of submersion on the Turkish coast was issued, before being lifted. The province of Hatay borders the Mediterranean, with the city of Antakya inland and the large cargo port of Iskenderun on the coast. According to AFAD, at least two other earthquakes of magnitude 5.2 occurred in the evening.
Iskenderum Port Public Hospital and Mustafa Kemal University Hospital in Antakya were evacuated as a precaution, the DHA news agency reported, and intensive care patients transferred to a field hospital. The AFAD relief coordination center was also evacuated.
In Syria, 47 people were injured in Aleppo, caught in a panic as they tried to flee, the Sana news agency reported. The group of Syrian rescuers of the White Helmets evokes more than 130 wounded in the north of the country.
The first quake, of magnitude 6.4, whose epicenter was located in Defne, a district about fifteen minutes by car from Antakya, occurred at 8:04 p.m. (6:04 p.m. Paris time) and was very violently felt by the teams of Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Antakya and Adana, 110 kilometers to the northwest.
It was followed three minutes later by a new earthquake of magnitude 5.8 in Samandag, a coastal town south of Antakya, reported AFAD, which fears “a rise in sea level of up to 50 centimeters”. The tremors were also felt in the Aleppo region, in northwestern Syria, reported AFP correspondents on the spot, who saw the panicked population leaving their homes and going out into the streets. Sections of damaged buildings have collapsed, said a photographer.
Calls for help
In Antakya too, the earthquake caused panic among the already hard-hit population and raised large clouds of dust in the ruined city. An AFP journalist saw and heard several sections of the walls of already badly damaged buildings crumble and several people, apparently injured, calling for help.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the province of Hatay on Monday, one of only two with those of Kahramanmaras where research and excavations have continued since the February 6 earthquake. Turkish authorities arrested them everywhere else on Sunday, since hope of finding survivors was virtually non-existent after fourteen days. According to the Head of State, more than 118,000 buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged.
AFAD says more than 6,000 aftershocks have been recorded since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated southern Turkey and Syria exactly two weeks ago.