Antakya, Türkiye - Another earthquake struck the border region of Türkiye and Syria on Monday, just two weeks after the area was devastated by a larger quake which killed more than 47 000 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.
Monday’s quake, this time with a magnitude of 6.3, was centred near the southern Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.
It struck at a depth of just 2km, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said, potentially magnifying its impact at ground level.
Muna Al Omar said she was in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the latest quake 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.
Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Türkiye 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 towards urgent shelter and reconstruction work.
The death toll from the quakes two weeks ago rose to 41 156 in Türkiye, the country’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority 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.
President Tayyip Erdogan said construction work on nearly 200 000 apartments in 11 earthquake-hit provinces of Türkiye would begin next month.
Total US humanitarian assistance to support the earthquake response in Türkiye and Syria has reached $185 million (R3.3 billion), the US State Department said.
Among the survivors of the earthquakes are about 356 000 pregnant women who urgently need access to health services, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA) has said.
They include 226 000 women in Türkiye and 130 000 in Syria, about 38 800 of whom will deliver in the next month.
Many of them were sheltering in camps or exposed to freezing temperatures and struggling to get food or clean water.
In Syria, already shattered by more than a decade of civil war, most deaths have been in the north-west, where the UN 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.
Syrian officials say 1 414 people were killed in areas under the control of Assad’s government.