Second earthquake hits Turkey as death toll surpasses 1,000

A second earthquake of magnitude 7.6 hit Kahramanmaras in Turkey on Monday, hours after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the country.

The incident was confirmed by the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said.

AFAD said the earthquake occurred at a depth of 7 km, adding that the epicentre of the quake was Elbistan region of Kahramanmaras province.

Earlier on Monday a major quake struck the same region, leading to hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries.

The AFAD boss, Yunus Sezer said, said the death toll in the earthquake has risen to 1,014, with some 2,824 buildings destroyed.

One of the largest quakes to strike Turkey in a century wiped out entire sections of major cities in a region filled with millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria and other conflicts.

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”.

At least 473 people were killed in Syria, state news agency SANA quoted a senior health official as saying.

Broadcasters TRT and Haberturk showed footage of people picking through building wreckage, moving stretchers, and seeking survivors in the city of Kahramanmaras, where it was still dark.

“Our primary job is to carry out the search and rescue work and to do that all our teams are on alert,” Turkish Interior Minister, Suleyman Soylu, told reporters.

Tremors were also felt in the Turkish capital of Ankara, 460 km (286 miles) northwest of the epicentre, and in Cyprus, where police reported no damage.

“The earthquake struck in a region that we feared. There is serious widespread damage,” the chief of the Turkish Red Crescent relief agency, Kerem Kinik told Haberturk, issuing an appeal for blood donations.

Turkey is among the most earthquake-prone countries in the world.

More than 17,000 people were killed in 1999 when a 7.6-magnitude quake struck Izmit, a city southeast of Istanbul.

In 2011, a quake in the eastern city of Van killed more than 500.

The Star