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Soylu said. Hatay Mayor Lutfu Savas told HaberTurk broadcaster that he had received reports about some people stuck under rubble after the latest quake.
Monday’s quake hit the Turkish town of Defne at 8:04 pm (1704 GMT) and was strongly felt by AFP teams in Antakya city and Adana province, 200 kilometres (300 miles) to the north. Buildings weakened by the February 6 quakes reportedly collapsed.
A team of AFP journalists also felt the tremor in Lebanon. An AFP journalist reported scenes of panic, adding that the new tremors raised clouds of dust in the devastated town. The walls of badly damaged buildings crumbled while several people, apparently injured, called for help.
In Samandag, where the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority AFAD reported one person dead, residents said more buildings collapsed but most of the town had already fled after the initial earthquakes. Mounds of debris and discarded furniture lined the dark, abandoned streets, reported Reuters.
The new earthquake triggered panic and further damaging buildings two weeks after the country’s worst earthquake in modern history left tens of thousands dead.
41,000 PEOPLE KILLED IN FEBRUARY 6 QUAKE IN TURKEY
A 7.8-magnitude quake hit Turkey and Syria on February 6 and the death toll rose to 41,156 in Turkey, AFAD said on Monday. It was expected to climb further, with 385,000 apartments known to have been destroyed or seriously damaged and many people still missing.
SYRIA QUAKE AFTERMATH
In Syria most deaths have been in the northwest, where the United Nations said 4,525 people were killed. The area is controlled by insurgents at war with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, complicating aid efforts.
As of Monday morning, 197 trucks loaded with U.N. humanitarian aid had entered northwest Syria through two border crossings, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
TURKEY AID
Hours earlier on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Turkey that Washington would help “for as long as it takes” as rescue operations in the wake of the February 6 earthquake and its aftershocks were winding down, and focus turned to toward urgent shelter and reconstruction work.
According to AFAD, more than 6,000 aftershocks have been recorded since the 7.8-magnitude quake hit Turkey and Syria.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would build almost 200,000 new homes in the country’s southeast region. The tragedy has left millions without homes.
Erdogan said around 118,000 buildings either collapsed, required urgent demolition or were severely damaged by the quake.
He announced reconstruction work would begin in March to build 199,739 homes, including more than 130,000 in the worst-affected provinces of Hatay, Kahramanmaras and Malatya.
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