ANTAKYA, Turkey, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Six people were killed in an earthquake that struck the border region of Turkey and Syria, CNN Turk reported on Tuesday, two weeks after a larger earthquake that killed more than 47,000 people and injured or destroyed hundreds of people. thousands of houses.
Monday’s earthquake, this time with a magnitude of 6.4, was centered near the southern Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon. It struck at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said.
CNN Turk showed a rescue team climbing a ladder to enter a building where several people were trapped after the latest earthquake. It is said that the earthquake struck while the people were in the destroyed building to retrieve their belongings before it was destroyed.
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 294 people were injured in Monday night’s earthquake, of which 18 were seriously injured and taken to hospitals in Adana and Dortyol.
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Patients were evacuated from some health facilities that remained in operation after several tremors two weeks ago, because there were cracks in the buildings, Koca said on Twitter.
In Samandag, where the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority AFAD reported one person dead on Monday, residents said several buildings had collapsed but most of the town had fled after the initial tremors. Mounds of debris and discarded furniture line the dark, deserted streets.
Muna Al Omar said he was in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the ground started to move again.
“I thought the ground would open up under my feet,” she said Monday, crying as she held her 7-year-old son.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Turkey on Monday that Washington would help “as long as necessary” as rescue operations after the February 6 earthquake and its aftershocks subside, and the focus focused on shelter and reconstruction work.
The death toll from earthquakes two weeks ago has risen to 41,156 in Turkey, AFAD said on Monday, and is expected to rise further, with 385,000 apartments known to have been destroyed or severely damaged and many more people are missing.
President Tayyip Erdogan said construction work on nearly 200,000 apartments in Turkey’s 11 earthquake-hit provinces will begin next month.
Total US humanitarian aid to support the earthquake response in Turkey and Syria has reached $185 million, the US State Department said.
[1/17] People react after the earthquake in Antakya in Hatay province, Turkey, February 20, 2023. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Among those who survived the earthquakes are about 356,000 pregnant women who need immediate health services, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency said.
This includes 226,000 women in Turkey and 130,000 in Syria, about 38,800 of whom will give birth in the next month. Many of them are sheltering in camps or exposed to freezing temperatures and struggling to get food or clean water.
SYRIA AID
In Syria, which has been torn apart by more than a decade of civil war, most of the deaths were in the northwest, where the United Nations said 4,525 people had died. The area is controlled by rebels fighting with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, complicating relief efforts.
Syrian officials say 1,414 people have died in areas controlled by Assad’s government.
The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said a convoy of 14 of its trucks entered northwestern Syria from Turkey on Sunday to help with rescue operations.
The World Food Program also pressured authorities in that region to stop blocking access for aid from areas controlled by the Syrian government.
On Monday morning, 197 trucks loaded with UN humanitarian aid entered northwestern Syria through two border crossings, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey have returned to their homes in northwestern Syria to contact relatives affected by the destruction.
At the Turkish Cilvegozu border crossing, hundreds of Syrians have been lining up since Monday to cross.
Mustafa Hannan, who dropped off his pregnant wife and 3-year-old son, said he saw about 350 people waiting.
The 27-year-old car electrician said his family would leave within months after their home in Antakya collapsed, taking a promise from authorities to allow them to spend up to six months in Syria without lose the chance to return to Turkey.
“I’m worried they won’t be allowed to come back,” he said. “We have been separated from our country. Are we going to be separated from our families now? If I rebuild here but they cannot return, I will lose my life.”
Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen and Henriette Chacar; Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Huseyin Hayatsever, Ezgi Erkoyun in Turkey and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Stephen Coates; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Lincoln Feast.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
