Dozens were injured and at least three killed in two new earthquakes in Syria and Turkey on Monday. At least three people have been killed and more than 200 injured in Turkey. In northwest Syria, at least 42 people were injured as panic spread and people jumped from buildings.
After two weeks of strong earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the border region between the two countries was once again hit by earthquakes of magnitude 6.4 and 5.8 at least on Monday evening. The epicenter of the earthquake was in the Turkish province of Hatay.
At least three people were killed there and 213 people were hospitalized, according to Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu. The minister warns the residents to go home immediately. He also spoke of at least 26 aftershocks on Monday night.
In rebel-held northwest Syria, people jumped from rooftops and terraces to save themselves. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said falling bricks and debris also hit people in Salqin, Hareem, Idlib, Khirbet al-Yuz and rural areas near Aleppo. In the city of Hama, in central Syria, a number of people were injured by falling debris.
“Many people left their homes and took to the streets, fearing more earthquakes, including in the capital, Damascus,” a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Twitter.
On February 6, the Turkish-Syrian border region was hit by a series of strong earthquakes, with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale. More than 47,000 people were killed, more than 41,000 of them in Turkey alone. This balance continues to increase every day. Hatay province was already one of the hardest hit provinces at that time.
