An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 hit southeast Turkey again.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 occurred southeast of the city. Turkey This Monday afternoon, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that almost 1,500 people had died in the region just hours after another quake.

The epicenter of this new shock is located in Elbistan, in the province of Kahramanmaras, about 80 km north of the site of the first earthquake and about 4 km southeast of the city of Ekinoso.

This strong aftershock comes after the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria earlier this Monday, killing at least 912 people and injuring more than 5,300 in that country alone, and in Syria about 473 dead and 1,382 were injured.

This earthquake, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is the second strongest that has shaken the country in the last century, and since rescue work is underway, he did not wish to give the total number of possible victims.

“This is the second strongest earthquake after the Erzincan earthquake in 1939. According to the latest estimates, it is 7.7 points. There are also serious destructions in the neighboring regions of Syria,” the Turkish president said.

Low temperatures and snow in the area, where there are also hard-to-reach mountain areas, complicate rescue work.

Erdogan noted that more than 2,800 houses collapsed or were seriously damaged and that 2,470 people were rescued alive from the rubble.

The jolt knocked thousands out of bed at 1:17 GMT on both sides of the border, with the quake toppling buildings across a vast area hundreds of kilometers stretching from northern Syria, from cities like Aleppo, to the southeast. Turkey, where the largest Turkish city in the Diyarbakir region was affected.

According to the Turkish emergency service Afad, the quake’s epicenter was located at Pazarchik in the province of Kahramanmaras, although the Kandilli seismic observatory places it at Sofalichi, in the neighboring province of Gaziantep, about 40 kilometers to the south.

The USGS estimated the magnitude of the quake at 7.8, while Afad set it at 7.7.

One of the symbols of the huge destruction caused by the earthquake is the historic Roman castle of Gaziantep, which stood for over 1700 years and was demolished by the earthquake.

losses in Syria

In Syria, embroiled in more than a decade of civil war, the stricken area is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-controlled enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces.

The quake thus killed at least 473 people and injured 1,382, mostly in areas controlled by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, where 326 deaths and 1,042 injured have been recorded so far, according to the latest count provided by a SANA official. news agency.

Separately, in the northwestern province of Idlib, the last stronghold of the country’s opposition, and in areas of neighboring Aleppo, also not under Damascus control, another 147 people were killed and more than 340 were injured, according to the White Helmets rescue team. .

These opposition areas border Turkey and are closer to the epicenter, so the difference in balance may be due to their lesser ability to coordinate the count, since there is no single state body in charge of rescue operations. (According to EFE and AFP)