Status: 02/06/2023 03:58 am
Southeast Turkey has been shaken by two violent earthquakes. The magnitude 6.7 and 7.8 shocks were registered in the early hours of the morning. The extent is still unclear, and there are many pictures of collapsed buildings circulating on social media.
Two violent earthquakes shook the south-east of Turkey in quick succession in the early hours of the morning. According to the USGS, the two earthquakes had magnitudes of 6.7 and 7.8. They occurred around 4:17 a.m. (local time/2:17 a.m. CET) and 4:28 a.m. (local time/2:28 a.m. CET) at a depth of around 17.9 kilometers. In both cases, the epicenter was near the city of Gaziantep, not far from the border with Syria.
Information about dead or injured is not yet available. According to images from the state broadcaster “TRT”, numerous buildings were damaged and residents gathered on snow-covered streets. The tremor lasted about a minute and shattered windows, an eyewitness told Reuters news agency. Several buildings collapsed in neighboring provinces of Malatya, Diyarbakir and Malatya, TV HaberTurk reported.
Syria also appears to have been badly affected
The earthquake was also felt in Lebanon and Syria. Syria’s state media reported that some buildings in the northern city of Aleppo and the central city of Hama had collapsed. According to first eyewitness reports on social media, people were buried under the rubble. The exact extent of the disaster is not yet foreseeable. Several strong aftershocks followed.
Only at the end of January did an earthquake shake the border region between Turkey and Iran. Turkey is located in one of the most active seismic regions in the world. In 1999, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in Düzce in the north killed more than 17,000 people.