Another strong earthquake hit Turkey Saturday morning, again rocking the region struggling to recover from a catastrophic quake two weeks ago.
The 5.2 magnitude earthquake hammered central Turkey, just days after another quake near the Syrian border. It struck near the cities of Aksaray and Emirgazi.
Saturday’s quake came as Turkey and Syria were trying to rebuild homes for the nearly two million left without shelter by the massive 7.8 magnitude Feb. 6 quake. Tents, container homes and other facilities are being used as makeshift shelter but many are yet to receive any help.
“Our houses are heavily damaged so we have taken shelter here, in a garden in our neighbourhood,” said a nursing student named Alswed, 25, who was among 60 Syrians staying at a makeshift roadside settlement near the city of Antakya. The residents used plastic sheeting, blankets, bricks and chunks of concrete from damaged buildings to erect 11 shelters.
“The biggest issue is tents. It has been 19 days and we are yet to receive a single tent. We also applied to move into a tent camp but they said the ones nearby are full,” he said.
Turkish officials said 335,000 tents were put up in the quake zone in Turkey and container home settlements were being established at 130 locations. Nearly 530,000 people have also been evacuated from the quake zone.
The death toll across the two countries from the earlier quake and its aftershocks rose to 50,000 overnight, but so far it’s not known if anyone died in the Saturday quake, the Daily Mail reported.
A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck parts of Turkey and Syria Monday. Three people died as a result and more buildings collapsed.
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