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Turkey: Turkey has experienced a third earthquake after two powerful earthquakes on Monday. Its intensity was 6.0. Earthquake tremors have been felt in central Turkey, according to the USGS. This is the third earthquake in less than 24 hours. Earlier today, a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit wide swaths of Turkey and Syria, toppling hundreds of buildings and killing more than 1,600 people.
India has also extended a helping hand. In a statement issued by the PMO, it has been said that NDRF and two medical teams consisting of 100 personnel are ready to go with relief material. Rescue teams will be dispatched immediately in coordination with the Turkish government.
Apart from Turkey, earthquake tremors have also been seen in Cyprus, Egypt and Lebanon. However, the news of loss in these countries has not yet come to the fore. A 13th century mosque in Maltya, Turkey has also been destroyed. The 14-floor building built here also collapsed, in which there were 28 apartments, all of them collapsed.
After the earthquake, the Turkish government has made an air aid corridor on behalf of the Turkish security forces. So that help reaches quickly. In view of the earthquake situation, the government has implemented emergency in the country.
Turkish President Fuat Oktays said that 2818 buildings collapsed in the country’s 10 affected provinces. So far more than 1600 people have died due to the earthquake. A total of 20 tremors were felt, not one or two. The epicenter of the earthquake was about 33 km away from Gaziantep at a depth of 18 km.
Nature has wreaked double havoc on the people of Turkey. This earthquake has come at a time when West Asia is in the grip of a snow storm, which is expected to continue till Thursday. Turkey had earlier experienced a powerful earthquake in 1999, when the magnitude of that earthquake was 7.4, in which about 18,000 people were killed. While about 1000 people died in Istanbul from Turkey.
Some buildings were such that the government had already warned about them. These were the buildings which were made of weak bricks. Most of the deaths in this earthquake could be of Syrian citizens. According to statistics, more than 1.9 million Syrian citizens live in Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tweeted that search and rescue teams were immediately dispatched to the quake-hit areas. He said that we hope that we will get out of this disaster together with minimum loss of life and property.
The earthquake sparked a new crisis in the occupied Idlib province in northwest Syria, which has already been subjected to years of Russian and government airstrikes. The region is dependent on Turkey for everything from food to medical supplies. All relief materials reach Idlib via Turkey. In northwest Syria, the opposition Syrian Civil Defense described the situation in the rebel-held area as “catastrophic”, saying many people were buried under the rubble of collapsing buildings. The Syrian Civil Defense has asked people to stay in open spaces outside buildings.
According to the US Geological Survey, the epicenter of the earthquake was about 33 km from Gaziantep at a depth of 18 km. Its tremors were felt in the provinces. The earthquake has come at a time when West Asia is in the grip of a snow storm, which is expected to continue till Thursday. About 18,000 people were killed in a powerful earthquake in northwest Turkey in 1999.
