An official said a 7.5-magnitude event in the Kahramanmaras province was “not an aftershock” but a separate earthquake
Search and rescue operations continue after 7.7 magnitude earthquake hits Adana, Turkiye on February 06, 2023. © Oguz Yeter / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Türkiye was hit by another powerful earthquake on Monday afternoon. This comes on the heels of a devastating quake in the early hours of the morning that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, according to local authorities.
The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center reported two more jolts with an interval of about ten minutes that sent shockwaves through the central part of the country at around 1:30pm local time. The first registered a magnitude of 7.5 and had an epicenter about 65km to northeast of the city of Kahramanmaras. This is the same region that was hard hit by the initial earthquake early this morning.
The second, with a magnitude of 5.8, had an epicenter 55km northwest of the city of Adiyaman in southeastern Türkiye.
An official from Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority clarified that the 7.5 earthquake was “not an aftershock” but a separate quake.
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The nation is already reeling from the first morning quake, which claimed the lives of at least 1,014 people while injuring more than 7,000.
Footage posted on social media shows the devastation wrought by the disaster. In one clip, a building in the Sanliurfa province is seen collapsing hours after the first earthquake. It was unclear whether anyone was inside the building at the time.
Neighboring Syria, which was also struck, has also been seeing aftershocks. Speaking to the SANA news agency, Raed Ahmad, the director of the National Earthquake Center, said that jolts have occurred and more will occur, but subsequent ones will be much weaker than the initial earthquake that killed at least 326 people in the country.
