New Delhi: A second earthquake of magnitude 7.5 hit southwest Turkey Monday evening, hours after the morning’s powerful quake in central Turkey and northwest Syria that has so far killed over 1300.
The second shallow tremors were felt in the Elbistan district in Kahramanmaraş Province in southern Turkey, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported.
It also rattled Damascus, Latakia and other Syrian provinces, the country’s SANA news agency said.
The morning’s quake of 7.8 magnitude hit in the early hours of the winter day, and is believed to be the worst in a century in Turkey. It was also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said 912 people were killed, 5,383 injured, and that 2,818 buildings had collapsed. Erdogan also said he could not predict how much the death toll would rise as search and rescue efforts continued.
The first 7.8-magnitude quake wiped swathes of major Turkish cities in a “restless region filled with millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria and other conflicts,” news reports said.
The head of Syria’s National Earthquake Centre, Raed Ahmed, told pro-government radio that this was “the biggest earthquake recorded in the history of the centre”, according to news agency AFP.
At least 326 people have died in government-controlled parts of Syria, according to the latest count.
India is rushing rescue and medical teams to the region, the Prime Minister’s Office said Monday. Two teams of the National disaster Relief Force (NDRF), comprising 100 personnel with specially-trained dog squads and necessary equipment, would be immediately flown, the PMO said. They will be followed by medical teams.
The epicenter of the morning earthquake was near the city of Gaziantep in south-central Turkey.
The United States Geological Survey reported 24 immediate aftershocks, felt aso in Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece, Jordan, Iraq and as far away as in Romania, Georgia and Egypt.
Also read: Visuals show scale of devastation in earthquake-hit Turkey. Rows of rubble, frantic rescue ops