After the violent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the danger has not yet been averted. Civil protection workers expect strong aftershocks.
Istanbul – The devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria provides sad images of destruction. The official number of dead has now risen to over 44,000 – experts assume even more victims. Thousands of people remain missing. According to the Turkish government, 20 million people in the country are affected by the effects of the quake. Only the reports of “miracle rescues” give hope – eleven days after the earthquake, people are still being rescued alive from the rubble.
Earthquake in Turkey: civil protection expects violent aftershocks
But the next bad news followed on Friday (February 17). The people in the affected areas must also expect severe shaking in the coming days. Aftershocks with a magnitude of more than five are expected, Orhan Tatar, director of risk reduction of Turkey’s civil protection Afad, told the state news agency Anadolu. There is an aftershock in the region about every four minutes.
So far there have been more than 4,700 aftershocks, 40 of which were stronger than 4. “This is a very extraordinary situation,” Tatar said. More than 84,000 buildings in Turkey either collapsed or were severely damaged by the earthquake, said the Minister of Urban Planning, Murat Kurum. An expert now warned against the reconstruction of the cities .
Earthquake disaster in Turkey and Syria: warning for those affected
Drone images of a gigantic gorge ripped open by the natural disaster show how severe the earthquake in Turkey and Syria was . Satellite data also shows that the land surface in Turkey and Syria has shifted by several meters in some cases.
In the earthquake-affected areas, people are still being warned not to return to their homes and asked to stay away from buildings. However, due to a lack of alternatives, people still go back to their buildings in search of clothing or personal items, as a dpa reporter from the site reported.
The earthquake in the Turkish-Syrian border region caused major damage. Experts warn: Such an earthquake is also “overdue” in Istanbul . On Thursday (February 16) an earthquake hit a holiday region in Croatia .
Source: merkur