Magnitude 6.3 earthquake strikes southern Turkey, 2 weeks after massive quake killed thousands | CNN

CNN
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A magnitude 6.3 aftershock struck southern Turkey on Monday injuring eight people, according to an official, two weeks after a massive earthquake killed tens of thousands of people in Turkey and Syria.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told a press conference Monday that eight people were injured following the aftershock, adding that a tsunami warning has been removed.

“We have eight injured people brought to our hospitals,” he said as he asked the public “not to enter the damaged buildings, especially to take their belongings.”

The quake struck Turkey’s southern Hatay province, near the Syrian border, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD) said Monday.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) initially reported the quake as being of magnitude 6.4 at a depth of 10 kilometers before revising it down to 6.3 magnitude.

AFAD warned people to stay away from the coastline as a precaution on Monday as the country’s vice president urged residents to stay away from damaged buildings.

The mayor of the town of Samandag, near where the quake hit, said some buildings had collapsed and that the mood was one of panic following the AFAD warning.

The powerful aftershock follows a deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake on February 6 that left more than 46,000 people dead in Turkey and Syria.

CNN teams in Adana, Turkey felt the quake, as did eyewitnesses in Gaziantep and Mersin.

On Sunday, Turkey’s disaster management authority said it had ended most search and rescue operations nearly two weeks after the earthquake struck as experts say the chances of survival for people trapped in the rubble this far into the disaster are unlikely.

Some efforts remain in the provinces of Kahramanmaraş and Hatay. On Saturday, a couple and their 12-year-old child were rescued in Hatay, 296 hours after the earthquake, state news agency Anadolu reported.

Efforts to retrieve survivors have been hampered by a cold winter spell across quake-stricken regions, while authorities grapple with the logistical challenges of transporting aid into northwestern Syria amid an acute humanitarian crisis compounded by years of political strife.

This story has been updated with new information from USGS.