Steph Deschamps / February 28, 2023
A new earthquake of magnitude 5.2 struck eastern Turkey on Monday morning, says the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC).
Buildings collapsed on Monday in the southeastern Turkish province of Malatya, hit by a 5.6-magnitude tremor, the state-run disaster management agency (Afad) announced, without initially reporting any casualties. "Buildings collapsed and our search and rescue teams were quickly dispatched," Afad said on Twitter.
The mayor of the city of Yesilyurt, located near the epicenter, also reported on Habertürk TV channel of destroyed buildings and operations underway to search for possible victims. The aftershock occurred at 12:04 local time, according to Afad.
According to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), this is the fifth tremor felt in eastern Turkey in the last 68 hours. It would have been felt more than 500 kilometers away by about 22 million people in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Georgia. The province of Malatya had already been affected by the devastating earthquake of February 6, which killed some 50,000 people in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake destroyed or severely damaged more than 170,000 buildings in 11 provinces of the country and also affected northern Syria. Some 10,000 aftershocks have occurred since February 6 in Turkey, according to Afad.