Turkey Earthquake: Third powerful quake measuring 7.5 jolts region, death toll crosses 2,300

Turkey Earthquake today, Third earthquake in Turkey: Another powerful earthquake hit Turkey on Monday, February 6, at 3:54 pm (IST) hours after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake caused wide-spread devastation in the region. The death toll from Monday’s earthquakes crossed 2,300 across Turkey and Syria. 

This aftershock was the third major jolt to have rocked southeastern Turkey today. According to the US Geological Survey, the third earthquake tremors measured 7.5 on the Richter scale. The epicenter of the earthquake was 4-kilometer south-southeast of Ekinözü, a town in Turkey’s Kahramanmaraş province.

“Notable quake, preliminary info: M 7.5 – 4 km SSE of Ekinözü, Turkey,” USGS Earthquakes tweeted.

Earlier, a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked wide swaths of Turkey and neighbouring Syria on Monday, killing more than 2,300 people and injuring thousands more as it toppled hundreds of buildings and trapped residents under mounds of rubble or pancaked floors.

Authorities feared the death toll would climb as rescuers searched through tangles of metal and concrete for survivors in a region beset by more than a decade of Syria’s civil war and a refugee crisis.

Residents jolted out of sleep by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside in the rain and snow to escape falling debris, while those who were trapped cried for help. Major aftershocks, including one nearly as strong as the initial quake, continued to rattle the region.

“I don’t have the strength anymore,” one survivor could be heard calling out from beneath the rubble in the Turkish city of Adana, as rescue workers tried to reach him, said a resident, journalism student Muhammet Fatih Yavuz. He said three buildings near his home were toppled.

The quake, which was centered on Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo and Beirut.

“Because the debris-removal efforts are continuing in many buildings in the earthquake zone, we do not know how high the number of dead and injured will rise,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

(With PTI Inputs)

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