Image: BAKR ALKASEM (AFP)
This was announced by the earthquake control center Kandilli in Istanbul on Monday. The epicenter was in the Samandag district. People ran into the streets in panic, as could be seen on television pictures. According to the broadcaster CNN Türk, the power went out in Hatay.
The earthquake was also felt in the surrounding provinces, in northern Syria and as far away as Lebanon. A resident near the Syrian city of Aleppo said the tremor was as strong as the one two weeks ago but did not last as long. “It scared people and made them run into the streets,” said the man named Abdel Kafi.
Houses collapsed again
In several places near the city of Aleppo, houses collapsed again, said a spokeswoman for the aid organization SAMS. Among them is the small town of Djindiris near the Turkish border, which was severely hit by the earthquake two weeks ago.
The quake came two weeks after a devastating earthquake hit the region. Early in the morning of February 6, a 7.7-magnitude tremor shook southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, followed hours later by a second severe 7.6-magnitude tremor. In both cases, the epicenter was in the southern Turkish province of Kahramanmaras. More than 47,000 people died in the quake, including at least more than 41,000 in Turkey.
Pictures of the severe earthquake in early February:
According to the United Nations, 8.8 million people in Syria are affected by the consequences of the earthquake disaster. “The majority of them are expected to be in need of some form of humanitarian assistance,” UN Deputy Syrian Envoy Najat Rochdi wrote on Twitter on Sunday. In the days following the February 6 earthquake, activists and aid workers in the rebel areas of north-west Syria complained about the lack of help from the UN.
Camp for more than 4000 people
NATO will help with shelter. A camp with emergency accommodation for at least 4,000 people is being set up in the member country Turkey. On Sunday evening, a cargo ship with 600 containers left the port of the Italian city of Taranto, which remained open especially for this purpose, an alliance spokesman said. It is scheduled to arrive in the city of Iskenderun within the week. In addition, NATO is coordinating an airlift for the transport of tents from Pakistan to Turkey. According to the government, around 225,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged by the earthquake around two weeks ago.
The disaster hit the region hard in many ways. It is difficult to foresee what the consequences will be for students and the classroom. Yasmine Sherif, director of the UN Education Cannot Wait (ECW) fund, told Al Jazeera TV that 600 schools had been destroyed in Syria alone. The fund is expected to provide $7 million (about €6.5 million) in emergency grants to continue providing children in Syria with access to education.
Search for survivors mostly over
Some rescue operations on the spot, where clean-up work had also begun, were coming to an end over the weekend. For example, a search and rescue team from Qatar ended its two-week mission in southern Turkey, as reported by the Qatari news agency QNA. The Turkish civil protection agency Afad announced on Sunday that the search work in nine of the eleven affected provinces had ended. Only in Kahramanmaras and Hatay will the search continue for victims, Afad chairman Yunus Sezer told journalists in Ankara.
It is estimated that more than 1.2 million people have left the affected region in Turkey. More than a million people are currently being temporarily housed in shelters, Sezer said.
Erdogan: “Will revive Hatay”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to rebuild the cities in the badly damaged province of Hatay from scratch. Hatay will be “revived in all its colors,” said Erdogan on Monday in the south-eastern Turkish province. He again emphasized that the government wants to start reconstruction in other provinces from March. “We will rebuild our destroyed civilization assets, most notably our Hatay Parliament Building, to their original form and restore the damaged ones,” he said. One does not want to change the demographic structure of the province. You should not believe any rumors to the contrary.
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Blinken, together with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, took a look at the destruction in the province of Hatay, which was badly hit by the earthquake. In addition, he wanted to meet affected families at the Incirlik air base, the Foreign Ministry said in advance.
US will help with $185 million
During his visit, Blinken promised a further 100 million US dollars (around 93 million euros) in aid. The US has now pledged a total of $185 million. Blinken explained that the aid should go to the earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria. The money will be used to buy relief supplies such as medicine, blankets, mattresses, tents and warm clothing. In addition, the supply of clean water and sanitary facilities, but also education for children, should be guaranteed.
In Syria, the situation was devastating for many people even before the earthquake. Bombardments and fighting during years of civil war, a serious economic crisis and often hardly any public services have made the country a focus for humanitarian aid workers. According to the UN, more than 15 million people needed some form of assistance before the earthquake struck.
Syria: At least 11,000 lost their homes
And about two weeks after the first tremors, not everyone in north-west Syria has received emergency aid. “We’re just at the beginning and haven’t seen the worst yet,” said Muhannad Hadi, the UN’s emergency aid coordinator for Syria. So far, for example, around 60,000 people have been supplied with water and around 13,000 earthquake victims with tents. According to the UN, around 40,000 households are currently homeless.
Since the disaster, more than 140 trucks with UN aid supplies have driven from Turkey to rebel-held north-western Syria. There, more than 9,000 buildings were completely or partially destroyed, leaving at least 11,000 people homeless. According to the UN, those affected most urgently needed accommodation such as tents.
Source: Nachrichten
