© Reuters. People react after an earthquake in Antakya in Hatay province, Turkey, February 20, 2023. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
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By Ali Kucukgocmen and Henriette Chacar
ANTAKYA, Turkey (Reuters) – Six people were killed in the latest earthquake to hit the Turkish-Syrian border region, authorities said on Tuesday, two weeks after a massive tremor killed more than 47,000 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes. .
Monday’s magnitude 6.4 quake was centered near the Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.
It was followed by 90 aftershocks, Turkey’s Emergency and Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) said, even as rescue work from the initial tremors on February 6 has been declining.
“I thought the ground was going to open under my feet,” said Muna Al Omar, holding her seven-year-old son. She now lives in a tent in an Antakya park after the February 6 earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.8, forced her to leave her home.
President Tayyip Erdogan’s government has faced criticism for what many Turks said was a slow emergency response to the first quake and for construction policies that meant thousands of apartment buildings collapsed on victims when the disaster struck.
Erdogan, in power for two decades, faces presidential and parliamentary elections in May, though the disaster could cause a delay. Even before the tremors, opinion polls showed it was under pressure from a cost-of-living crisis, which could worsen as the disaster has disrupted agricultural production.
He has promised a swift rebuilding effort, though experts say it could be a recipe for another disaster if safety measures are sacrificed in the rush to rebuild.
“We will not run from the polls or ignore democracy,” said Devlet Bahceli, an Erdogan ally and leader of the nationalist MHP party, adding that the opposition was “obsessed and delusional” over criticizing the government’s response to the earthquake and discussing the electoral calendar.
“Turkey … will bury you at the polls soon,” he said.
Turkey’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 294 people were injured in the latest quake, adding that patients were evacuated from some health facilities that had remained in operation after the first quakes as buildings cracked. .
‘THE TIME IT TAKES’
In Antakya, a man hugged and comforted another who was crying after news reports of people dead in the already shattered city after they entered a building to retrieve their belongings when the latest earthquake toppled the structure.
A rescue team carried one of the dead, covered in a yellow bag, down a stairway from the destroyed apartment block, before placing him in a coffin for transport in a municipal van.
AFAD said the death toll in Turkey from the February 6 disaster had reached 41,156 and was expected to rise, while 385,000 apartments were known to have been destroyed or damaged.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Turkey on Monday that Washington would help “for as long as it is needed.” The US State Department said US humanitarian assistance for Turkey and Syria had reached $185 million.
Governments around the world have promised assistance.
In Syria, already torn by more than a decade of war, most of the deaths have been in the northwest, where the United Nations said 4,525 people were killed. The area is controlled by insurgents at war with President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria said 1,414 people were killed in areas under government control.
The World Food Program has been pressuring authorities to allow aid through from government-controlled areas.
Thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey have returned to their homes in northwestern Syria to contact relatives caught in the disaster or have sent relatives back to Syria after their homes in Turkey were destroyed.
At the Cilvegozu Turkish border crossing, hundreds of Syrians lined up since early Monday morning to cross.
Mustafa Hannan, a 27-year-old Syrian, left his pregnant wife and three-year-old son at the crossing into Syria after their house in Antakya collapsed.
“I am concerned that they will not be allowed to return,” he said. “If I rebuild here but they can’t come back, I will lose my life.”