This is only a first assessment published by the Turkish authorities after this new earthquake that occurred near Gaziantep, in the south of the country. Buildings have also collapsed in neighboring Syria.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
An earthquake of magnitude 7.8 caused the death of at least five people in the Turkish province of Osmaniye, in the south of the country, on Monday, February 6, said Erdinç Yilmaz, the governor of the province, cited by the Anadolu state agency. According to him, 34 buildings were destroyed in the province.
According to the American seismological institute USGS, the earthquake took place at 04:17 am local (02 h 17, Paris time), at a depth of around 17.9 kilometers. According to the AFAD, the Government Agence for Disaster Management, the earthquake was a magnitude of 7.4.
The epicenter is located in the district of Pazarcik, in the province of Kahramanmaras, about 60 km as the crow flies from the Syrian border. The tremors, felt throughout the south-east of the country, were also in Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus, according to correspondents of the France-Presse Agency (AFP).
Videos published on social networks show destruction of buildings in several cities in the south-east of the country, as in Adiyaman, Diyarbakir and Malaty, according to the Turkish private channel NTV.
One of the most active seismic areas in the world
Syrian state television reported that a building near Lattaquié, on the west coast of Syria, collapsed after the earthquake. Pro-government media have said that several buildings have partially collapsed in Hama, in central Syria. Civil Defense and Syrian firefighters are at work to extract any victims of the rubble.
Turkey is located in one of the most active seismic areas in the world. At the end of November, an earthquake of magnitude 6.1 struck the northwest of the country making around fifty wounded and limited damage, according to Turkish rescue services.
This same northwest region had been hardly experienced in August 1999 by an earthquake of 7.4 magnitude, which had caused 17,000 people, including a thousand in Istanbul. In January 2020, an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 struck the provinces of Elazig and Malatya (east), killing more than 40 people. In October of the same year, an earthquake of magnitude 7 at the Aveeus sea had killed 114 people and more than 1,000 injured in Turkey.