Turkey-Syria: deadly escalation continues following new earthquake

A new earthquake has struck the border area between Turkey and Syria. After the strong earthquake of 6 February measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, with its subsequent strong aftershocks, which caused great devastation and more than 45,000 deaths, this Monday there has been another seismic movement in the region of 6.4 that has again hit the already affected population. 

According to the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), the new earthquake has left eight people dead and more than 300 injured. The quake struck at a depth of 7.7 kilometres and had its epicentre in the town of Defne in Turkey's Hatay province, which has already been hard hit by previous earthquakes. More buildings collapsed in the new quake, trapping more people, while dozens of injuries were also reported in neighbouring Syria.

Kahramanmaraş merkezli meydana gelen depremlerin ardından vatandaşlarımızın geçici barınma ihtiyacını karşılamak amacıyla bölgeye ilk andan itibaren başlattığımız çadır sevkiyatlarımız aralıksız devam ediyor.

— AFAD (@AFADBaskanlik) February 21, 2023

Southern Turkey and northwestern Syria are once again hit by a new tragedy just weeks after the region suffered one of the worst natural disasters of the century, leaving more than 45,000 people dead and some 110,000 buildings collapsed and unusable. 

The new earthquake was so strong that it was felt in Syria, Jordan, Cyprus, Israel and even Egypt, and was followed by another of magnitude 5.8, which continued to frighten and affect the region's population.  

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said eight people were dead and confirmed that nearly 300 citizens were injured. Search and rescue efforts were underway in three collapsed buildings where several people were believed to be trapped.

Meanwhile, Syria's state news agency SANA reported that six people were injured in Aleppo by falling debris. The White Helmets, a rescue group operating in the area of northwestern Syria not under the control of Bashar al-Assad's government, reported more than 130 wounded whose lives are not in danger, although they are suffering serious injuries. Syria continues to suffer the drama of the civil war that is affecting the nation and that causes the situation to be greatly aggravated by the poor living conditions of millions of displaced people and refugees in the Turkish-Syrian border area due to the war that pits the al-Assad regime against opposition groups and rebels who count on the last stronghold of Idlib as their last bastion. A region that has also been seriously affected by the latest succession of earthquakes. In Idlib, many of those affected were looking for areas in parks and other public places to sleep for fear of further building collapses.

The powerful earthquake of 6 February killed more than 45,000 people in both countries, although the vast majority of deaths occurred in Turkey, just over 41,000, a country where more than 1.5 million people are in temporary shelters, according to the authorities. Turkish authorities have recorded more than 6,000 aftershocks since then, a sign of the magnitude of the tragedy. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Hatay on Monday and said his government would start building around 200,000 new homes in the quake-devastated region next month. Erdogan said the new infrastructure will have special features to cope with future earthquakes; the new buildings will be no higher than three or four storeys, built on firmer ground and to better standards, under the supervision of professors of geophysics, geotechnics, geology and seismology and other experts, as reported by Arab News. 

Search and rescue operations for survivors were cancelled in most of the quake-affected area, but AFAD chief Yunus Sezer said search teams were continuing their efforts in more than a dozen collapsed buildings, mainly in Hatay province, which was recently hit by the quake in the past few hours. 

Concerns are now being raised about the state of the injured and possible people trapped in the rubble. Meanwhile, the European Union's health agency warned of the risk of disease outbreaks. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said that "food- and waterborne diseases, respiratory infections and vaccine-preventable infections are an upcoming risk, with the potential to cause outbreaks, particularly as survivors move into temporary shelters". "An increase in cholera cases in the affected areas is a significant possibility in the coming weeks," the agency reported, noting that authorities in northwestern Syria have reported thousands of cases of the disease since last September, while a planned vaccination campaign was delayed due to a succession of earthquakes. 

The natural disaster has been immense. The earthquakes that have hit Turkey and Syria have had very clear effects on the earth's crust, in particular on a 250-kilometre strip showing fractures of up to 6 metres of ground displacement, the German Aerospace Centre said in a statement. The data shows the heavy blow that nature has inflicted on the population of the Turkish-Syrian border area.