3 die, hundreds injured in Türkiye, Syria fresh earthquake

ISTANBUL/ANKARA/ALEPPO (AA/AFP) – At least three people were killed and hundreds others wounded after a fresh earthquake jolted Türkiye and Syria on Monday, the country’s disaster agency said on Tuesday.

As many as 90 aftershocks have been recorded since Monday’s magnitude 6.4 quake, according to the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD).

The recent tremor hit Hatay’s Defne district around 8.04 p.m. local time (1704GMT).

It was followed by a magnitude 5.8 aftershock three minutes later, with the epicenter in Hatay’s Samandag district.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said three people were killed and 213 were taken to hospital, while in Syria White Helmets said more than 130 people were injured and that some already damaged buildings had collapsed.

Images from DHA news agency showed a hospital in Antakya being evacuated while NTV broadcaster reported another hospital was evacuated in the city of Iskenderun.

DHA said patients in intensive care unit were taken to field hospitals by ambulance to continue their treatment.

Soylu said rescue workers were trying to find people trapped under rubble.

‘Earth opening up’

An AFP journalist reported scenes of panic in Antakya, adding that the new tremors raised clouds of dust in the devastated city.

The walls of badly damaged buildings crumbled while several people, apparently injured, called for help.

On a street in Antakya, Ali Mazlum, 18, told AFP: “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. 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.

‘No longer safe’

Officials had urged people to stay away from the coast but Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said the warning had been lifted as the risk of a tsunami no longer remained.

“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.

“Hatay is no longer a safe place. We could hear a lot of buildings collapsing… We will wait for a new day, but I don’t know what I’m going to do,” added the man who had been sleeping in his car for two weeks after the first quake.

The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said five hospitals it supports in northwest Syria received several people who had sustained minor injuries, some when parts of damaged buildings fell on them.

In regime-held areas, Aleppo hospitals also received panic-stricken residents, while six people were injured by falling rubble, Syrian state agency SANA said.

Al Razi hospital in the city of Aleppo received 47 cases, state media reported.

“We rushed out, we don’t know how we left. I was afraid that we would meet the same fate as those who died under the rubble, said Khadija Al Khalaf, a 45-year-old mother, in the rebel-held city of Azaz.

AFP teams also felt the tremor in Lebanon.