The new Turkey-Syria earthquakes instilled another round of trauma for residents as the 6.3 magnitude tremor affected the area that the previous, stronger quake devastated.
The previous earthquakes have been known to kill roughly 45,000 people and have destroyed thousands of buildings. Turkey's disaster management agency noted that on Monday, six people were killed, and roughly 300 were wounded, 18 of whom critically.
New Turkey-Syria Earthquakes
On the other hand, in Syria, a woman and a girl lost their lives in the provinces of Hama and Tartus amid reports of people jumping from buildings to escape collapsing structures. The latest tremor also damaged buildings that survived the quakes two weeks ago, displacing a new group of residents into the streets of Aleppo and Latakia.
In a statement, a Damascus-based spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Jani Savolainen, said that the biggest impact of the recent earthquake is something not visible: the effect that it has on the people, as per USA Today.
Savolainen said that the latest tremor brought back memories from the war and created new traumas of people losing family members, homes, and belongings. Before the recent quake, authorities recorded roughly 6,000 aftershocks after the tremors two weeks ago.
The Monday earthquake was centered in Defne, located in the country's Hatay province. The quakes struck the province, which borders Syria and the Mediterranean Sea, on February 6. Residents felt a second tremor on Monday, a magnitude 5.8 quake, and several dozens of aftershocks. Furthermore, the recent incidents shook parts of Jordan, Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, and Egypt.
Read Also: Japan Provides $5.5 Billion Aid for Ukraine
Search and Rescue Operations
In a Tuesday Twitter post, Yunus Sezer, the head of Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Agency, said that search and rescue operations were ongoing to look for any survivors in the affected areas, according to CNN.
Officials noted that three men in Antakya were trapped when a building that previously survived the two quakes collapsed in the latest tremor. Into the early hours of Tuesday, hundreds of rescuers tried to reach the men. Some rescuers fell asleep on rubble next to fires as others endured the freezing temperatures while trying to rescue the trapped people.
The White Helmets volunteer rescue group said more than 130 people were injured in northwest Syria. They added that they deployed teams to take injured people to hospitals, inspect the affected areas, and remove rubble to open up roads so that ambulances could pass through.
The United States Geological Survey initially said that the quake was a magnitude 6.4 tremor with a depth of 10 kilometers but later revised this to magnitude 6.3. On Monday, Turkish Vice President Fuat Okyat urged the public to avoid entering damaged buildings, even if it was to take their belongings.
In a statement, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the White House would continue assisting Turkey, citing that the nation had so often contributed by providing humanitarian rescue experts to other countries, said Aljazeera.
Related Article : Russia Suspends Nuclear Treaty with US
