Six Killed: After Latest Earthquake Shakes Turkey

Antakya, Turkey, February 21 (Reuters) - Six people have died in the latest earthquake in the Turkish-Syrian border region, authorities said on Tuesday, two weeks after a powerful tremor killed more than 47,000 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses. . 

 

Monday's 6.4-magnitude quake, which came shortly before relief efforts after the end of  the first devastating earthquake, struck near the Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon. 

It was followed by 90 aftershocks, Turkey's Disasters and Crisis Management Agency (AFAD) said, adding further trauma to Antakya residents who were left homeless and living in tents after the quake. 7.8 magnitude  earthquake on February 6th.

“For me, this is one of the signs of the apocalypse. I felt like we were going to die, that we were going to be buried here,” said Murat Vural, a 47-year-old blacksmith.

 

Shortly after Monday's earthquake, he called his friend  to say they were leaving town would have to. place to be," she said. “Most of the time we worry about our lives." 

More than 41,000 people have died in Turkey in the first quake, officials said, while the death toll in neighboring Syria stands at around 6,000 that has caused thousands of homes to collapse, trapping victims under the rubble. 

"It is our duty to bring the guilty to justice before the law"; said Erdogan  in the southern province of Osmaniye. 

She has been in power for two decades and faces presidential and general elections in May, although  disaster could mean a delay.

Even before the earthquakes, opinion polls suggested it was under pressure from a cost-of-living crisis that could worsen if the disaster  disrupted agricultural production.

 

PROMISES OF QUICK RECOVERY 

Erdogan has promised a speedy recovery, although experts say it could be a recipe for another disaster if security measures are sacrificed in the rush to rebuild. 

"We will not run away from the elections or neglect democracy," said Devlet Bahceli, an Erdogan ally and leader of the nationalist MHP party, adding that the opposition was "obsessed and delusional"; for criticizing the government's response to the earthquake  and for debating the date of the election. 

"Turkey...I'll bury you soon in the elections," he said. Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 294 people were injured in the latest earthquake, adding that patients were evacuated from some health facilities because of the buildings damaged after the first Earthquake still working 

In Antakya, after entering the building to get their belongings, a man hugged and comforted another who wept at the news of people killed in the already devastated city  when the last earthquake hit the building and it destroyed the dead, wrapped in a yellow sack before being placed in a coffin and transported in a city van.

Turkey

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