Another 6.4 Magnitude Quake Hits Turkey-Syria, 3 Dead, Over 200 Injured

Another earthquake struck the Turkish-Syrian border region, just two weeks after a larger quake devastated the area, killing over 47,000 people and damaging or destroying hundreds of thousands of homes.

The 6.4 magnitude quake on Monday was centred near the southern Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.

According to the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), the earthquake occurred at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles).

Hatay Mayor Lutfu Savas told HaberTurk that he had received reports of people trapped under rubble following the latest earthquake. According to Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, three people were killed and more than 200 were injured.

Residents said more buildings collapsed in Samandag, where the country's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority AFAD reported one person dead, but most of the town had already fled after the initial earthquakes. The streets were littered with debris and discarded furniture.

Muna Al Omar said she was sleeping in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the ground began to tremble again.

“I thought the earth was going to split open beneath my feet,” she cried, clutching her 7-year-old son in her arms.

On a visit to Turkey hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington would assist “for as long as it takes” as rescue operations in the aftermath of the 6 February earthquake and its aftershocks wound down and attention turned to urgent shelter and reconstruction work.

According to AFAD, the death toll from the quakes two weeks ago has risen to 41,156 in Turkey, with 385,000 apartments known to have been destroyed or severely damaged and many people still missing.

According to President Tayyip Erdogan, construction on nearly 200,000 apartments in Turkey's earthquake-ravaged provinces will begin next month.

According to the US State Department, the total US humanitarian assistance for the earthquake response in Turkey and Syria has reached USD 185 million.

According to the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, among the earthquake survivors are approximately 356,000 pregnant women who urgently require access to health services.

They include 226,000 women in Turkey and 130,000 in Syria, with approximately 38,800 due to give birth in the next month. Many of them were in camps or exposed to freezing temperatures, unable to obtain food or clean water.