Authorities announced on Tuesday that six people were killed in the latest earthquake to hit Turkey and Syria’s border area, two weeks after a major tremor killed more than 47,000 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses.
The magnitude 6.4 earthquake that struck Turkey on Monday was felt in Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. That was followed by 90 aftershocks, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), even though rescue efforts after the original earthquakes on February 6 were tapering down.
“I felt the earth was going to break up beneath my feet,” Muna Al Omar, who was carrying her seven-year-old son, said. She currently lives in a tent in an Antakya park after the magnitude 7.8 quake on February 6 forced her to flee her house.
President Tayyip Erdogan’s government has come under fire for what many Turks saw as a poor emergency response to the first earthquake, as well as development laws that resulted in hundreds of apartment complexes collapsing on victims when tragedy hit.
Erdogan, who has been in power for two decades, is set to hold presidential and legislative elections in May, though the accident may force a postponement. Even before the earthquakes, surveys suggested he was under pressure from a cost-of-living issue, which might increase now that agricultural output has been affected by the tragedy.
He has vowed a quick restoration effort, but experts warn that sacrificing safety precautions in the rush to restore might lead to another calamity.
“We will neither avoid the ballot box or neglect democracy,” said Devlet Bahceli, Erdogan’s friend and leader of the nationalist MHP, adding that the opposition was “obsessed and deluded” for criticising the government’s earthquake response and contemplating election dates. “Turkey… will bury you shortly at the vote box,” he said.
According to Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, 294 people were hurt in the last quake, and patients were evacuated from certain health institutions that had stayed open after the initial quakes due to structure cracks.
‘Whatever long it takes’
In Antakya, one guy hugged and consoled another who was weeping after hearing of the deaths of those who had entered a building to recover belongings as the latest earthquake occurred, bringing the structure down.
A rescue crew lowered one of the deceased, who was wrapped in a yellow bag, down a ladder from the collapsed apartment building before placing it in a coffin and transporting it in a municipal vehicle.
According to AFAD, the death toll in Turkey from the Feb. 6 tragedy had risen to 41,156 and was projected to rise further, with 385,000 apartments confirmed to have been destroyed or damaged.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Turkey on Monday that Washington will support “for as long as it takes”. According to the US State Department, US humanitarian assistance for Turkey and Syria has surpassed $185 million. Governments from all across the world have promised their support.
In Syria, which has already been destroyed by more than a decade of conflict, the majority of casualties have occurred in the northwest, where the United Nations reported 4,525 dead. Insurgents fighting President Bashar al-Assad dominate the area. Syria reported 1,414 deaths in government-controlled regions.
The World Food Programme has urged authorities to enable supplies to move through government-controlled regions. Hundreds of Syrian refugees in Turkey have returned to their homes in northwest Syria to contact relatives who have been affected by the crisis, or they have sent family members back to Syria after their houses in Turkey were destroyed.
Hundreds of Syrians queued to reach the Turkish border in Cilvegozu beginning early Monday. As their home in Antakya fell, Mustafa Hannan, a 27-year-old Syrian, left off his pregnant wife and three-year-old kid at the border to Syria. “I’m concerned they won’t be permitted to return,” he stated. “My life will be wasted if I rebuild here but they cannot return.”