Dash cam footage shows the huge scale of latest Turkey earthquake
Topics: World News, Health
Emily Brown
Featured Image Credit: BBC
Topics: World News, Health
Footage caught by a car dashcam shows the moment Turkey was rocked by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake two weeks after thousands of people died in an even bigger quake.
The ground could be seen swaying back and forth dramatically in the footage caught on Monday (20 February), when the earthquake struck the border region of Turkey and Syria:
Officials in Turkey have confirmed at least six people have died and 294 more have been injured as a result of the latest quake, the epicentre of which was located in the province’s Defne district.
A further 130 people were injured in Syria on Monday, the White Helmets volunteer rescue group said, with a number of buildings having collapsed as a result.
“Our teams are working to take the injured to hospitals, inspect the affected villages and towns, and remove rubble to open the roads for the ambulances,” the White Helmets said.
Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said there have already been 90 aftershocks from Monday's earthquake, which struck at 8:04pm local time at a depth of 10km.
One local, Muna Al Omar, had been in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the ground started to shake dramatically once again.
"I thought the earth was going to split open under my feet," she told Reuters as she held her seven-year-old son.
This week's deaths come after more than 40,000 people lost their lives in the earthquake that struck 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Turkey's Gaziantep province, in the early hours of Monday morning on 6 February.
An 18-year-old, Ali Mazlum, told AFP news agency he felt the tremors yesterday while looking for the bodies of family members from the previous disaster.
"You don't know what to do... we grabbed each other and right in front of us, the walls started to fall," he said.
Hundreds of thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed in the initial earthquake, forcing residents to flee and relocate to camps.
Members of the public have now been warned by officials to stay away from buildings amid the risk of collapse, with Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay urging people 'not to enter the damaged buildings, especially to take their belongings'.
In a post on Twitter, Turkish Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca addressed the latest quake as he wrote: “I wish for our injured, patients, local people and all the people of our country to get well soon. May Allah ease our pain with health and well-being, and protect us from new pains and worries."