Three people were killed and over 200 were injured by a new 6.4-magnitude earthquake on Monday in parts of Turkey that had been devastated by a massive earthquake two weeks earlier that killed tens of thousands. In Turkey and Syria, officials reported that additional buildings collapsed, trapping occupants and causing numerous injuries.
The town of Defne in Turkey's Hatay province, which was one of the worst-hit areas in the magnitude 7.8 quake on Feb. 6, was the epicenter of the quake on Monday. It was followed by a second earthquake of magnitude 5.8 that was felt in Syria, Jordan, Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt.
According to Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, 213 people were injured and three died. Three collapsed buildings were the focus of search and rescue efforts, and it was believed that five people were trapped inside.
According to Hatay's mayor, Lutfu Savas, a number of buildings collapsed during the latest quake, trapping people inside. According to what he told NTV television, these individuals might have returned to their homes or were attempting to relocate their furniture from damaged buildings.
According to Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay, at least eight individuals were treated in hospitals in Turkey. Six people were injured in Aleppo by falling debris, according to SANA, the state news agency of Syria.
According to HaberTurk television, police search teams in Hatay rescued one person trapped inside a three-story building and attempted to reach three others inside.
Nearly 45,000 people were killed in the quake on February 6 in both countries. The majority of those killed were in Turkey, where over a million and a half people are staying in temporary shelters. Since then, Turkish authorities have recorded over 6,000 aftershocks.
According to HaberTurk journalists reporting from Hatay, they were violently shaken by the earthquake on Monday and held onto one another to avoid falling.
Alejandro Malaver, a witness in the Turkish city of Adana, said that people left their homes and went out into the streets, bringing blankets into their cars. Malaver stated that "no one wants to get back into their houses" and that everyone is extremely afraid.
The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, an arm of the opposition in Syria, reported that several people were injured in the rebel-held northwest of Syria when they jumped from buildings or were struck by falling debris in the town of Jinderis, one of the towns that suffered the most damage from the earthquake on February 6.
In the northwest of Syria, according to the White Helmets, several damaged and abandoned buildings collapsed without injuring anyone.
Fearful residents of the Syrian city of Idlib were getting ready to sleep in parks and other public areas while fuel lines grew at gas stations as people tried to get away from any buildings that might fall.
Hospitals in northern Syria run by the Syrian American Medical Society said they had treated a number of patients, including a 7-year-old boy, who had heart attacks caused by fear after the new quake.
According to Oktay, Hatay was undergoing damage inspections, and the public was urged to avoid damaged buildings and carefully follow the directions given by rescue workers.
Earlier on Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a visit to Hatay and announced that his government would begin building close to 200,000 new homes in the quake-ravaged region as soon as the following month.
Erdogan stated that the new structures would be no taller than three or four stories, constructed on firmer ground, in accordance with higher standards, and after consulting with "geophysics, geotechnical, geology, and seismology professors" and other specialists.
The leader of Turkey stated that demolished cultural landmarks would be rebuilt in accordance with their "historic and cultural texture."
Erdogan stated that approximately 1.6 million individuals are currently staying in temporary shelters.
On Monday, the number of confirmed deaths resulting from the February 6 earthquake in Turkey was increased to 41,156 by the disaster management agency in Turkey, AFAD. That brings the total number of deaths in Turkey and Syria to 44,844.
According to reports, rescue efforts for survivors have been suspended in the majority of the quake zone; however, AFAD chief Yunus Sezer stated that search teams were continuing their efforts in more than a dozen collapsed buildings, the majority of which were located in Hatay province.
Since three members of one family a mother, father, and 12-year-old boy were rescued from a collapsed building in Hatay on Saturday, there were no signs that anyone was still alive beneath the rubble. The boy died later.
According to the authorities, more than 110,000 buildings in 11 Turkish provinces that were affected by the quake on February 6 were either destroyed or severely damaged to the point where they needed to be demolished.
On Monday, the health agency of the European Union issued a warning regarding the possibility of disease outbreaks in the coming weeks. “Food and water-borne diseases, respiratory infections, and vaccine-preventable infections are a risk in the upcoming period, with the potential to cause outbreaks, particularly as survivors are moving to temporary shelters,” stated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It noted that authorities in northwestern Syria have reported thousands of cases of the disease since last September and that a planned vaccination campaign was delayed due to the earthquake. “A surge of cholera cases in the affected areas is a significant possibility in the coming weeks,” it said.
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