An earthquake, with a magnitude 6.3 at a depth of two km (1.2 miles), struck the Turkey-Syria border region on February 20, 2023, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.
Two Reuters witnesses reported a strong quake and further damage to buildings in central Antakya which was hit by two massive earthquakes two weeks ago, causing tens of thousands of deaths and destroying buildings and infrastructure.
Other witnesses said Turkish rescue teams were running around after the latest quake, checking people were unharmed.
Muna Al Omar, a resident, said she was in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the earthquake hit.
“I thought the earth was going to split open under my feet,” she said, crying as she held her 7-year-old son in her arms.
“Is there going to be another aftershock?” she asked.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey’s southeast and neighbouring Syria on February 6, killing more than 45,000 people and leaving a million-plus people homeless, with the economic cost of the disaster expected to run into billions of dollars.
Since the earthquake, the United States has sent a search and rescue team to Turkey, along with medical supplies, concrete-breaking machinery and additional funding of $85 million in humanitarian aid that also covers Syria.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said that nearly 13,000 excavators, cranes, trucks and other industrial vehicles had been sent to the quake zone.
Among the survivors of the February 6 earthquakes in Turkey and Syria are about 3,56,000 pregnant women who urgently need access to reproductive health services, the U.N. sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA) said at the weekend.
The women include 2,26,000 in Turkey and 1,30,000 in Syria, about 38,800 of whom will deliver in the next month.
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