ZTwo violent earthquakes shook the south-east of Turkey in quick succession early Monday morning. According to the Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam, the two earthquakes had magnitudes of 7.4 and 7.9.
They therefore occurred around 4.17 a.m. (local time/2.17 a.m. CET) and 4.28 a.m. (local time/2.28 a.m. CET) at a depth of ten kilometers. In both cases, the epicenter was near the city of Gaziantep, not far from the border with Syria.
People have died in south-east Turkey, said Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, without naming a number.
collapsed buildings
According to initial eyewitness reports on social media, north-western Syria was also severely affected. Accordingly, buildings collapsed in the border area, people were buried under rubble. The exact extent of the disaster was initially not foreseeable. Several strong aftershocks followed.
Turkey is located in one of the most active seismic regions in the world. In 1999, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in Düzce in the north of the country killed more than 17,000 people.
The approximate location of the earthquake in southeastern Turkey
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Image: AP/dpa
