At least one person died and dozens were injured on Monday (February 27th) in a 5.6-magnitude earthquake in Turkey's southeastern province of Malatya, the government agency said. management of natural disasters (AFAD). “One of our fellow citizens is unfortunately dead. Sixty-nine injured were transferred to hospitals,” said Yunus Sezer, president of AFAD, during a press briefing.
About 30 buildings also collapsed during this aftershock of the violent earthquake that hit southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, according to the same source.
Collapsed buildings
The mayor of the city of Yesilyurt, located near the epicenter, explained on the Habertürk television channel that a father and his daughter, who had come to collect personal belongings from their accommodation, were under the rubble of one of the collapsed buildings. "Buildings collapsed, and our search and rescue teams were quickly dispatched," AFAD previously tweeted.
Images broadcast on Turkish television on Monday showed rescuers in action, some removing debris by hand. The aftershock occurred at 12:04 p.m. local time (10:04 a.m. Paris time), according to AFAD.
The province of Malatya had already been affected by the devastating earthquake of February 6, which killed 44,374 people in the south and south-east of the country, according to the latest official report. The earthquake, measuring 7.8, destroyed or severely damaged more than 170,000 buildings in eleven provinces of the country and also affected neighboring northern Syria. Some 10,000 aftershocks have taken place since February 6 in Turkey, according to AFAD.
