New 64 magnitude earthquake rocks southern Turkey Al Jazeera

New 6.4 magnitude earthquake rocks southern Turkey

Monday’s aftershocks in Hatay province were shallow, meaning they posed a serious danger to people in the tremor zone.

A shallow magnitude 6.4 earthquake rocked the Turkish-Syrian border region after it was devastated by tremors earlier this month that killed tens of thousands.

Monday’s aftershock in Turkey’s Hatay province occurred at a depth of 2 km (1.2 miles), the European Mediterranean Seismological Center said.

The quake struck the city of Defne at 20:04 (17:04 GMT) and was felt strongly in the cities of Antakya and Adana, 200 km (300 miles) north.

A second magnitude 5.8 force centered in Hatay’s Samandag district shook the region minutes later, Turkey’s Emergency Management Authority said.

Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig, reporting from Gaziantep, said there were reports of other buildings being demolished in the area.

“There are buildings that are standing but have been damaged. The fear is that if there are more aftershocks like this one, those buildings could collapse and cause further damage to the area or danger to life,” Baig said.

Witnesses said Turkish rescue teams ran around after the latest tremors, checking to make sure people were unharmed.

Muna al-Omar said she was in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the tremors hit on Monday.

“I thought the earth would burst open under my feet,” she said, crying as she held her 7-year-old son in her arms. “Will there be another aftershock?” She asked.

Magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes struck southeastern Turkey and neighboring Syria on February 6, killing more than 47,000 people and leaving a million homeless, along with economic costs expected to be in the tens of billions of dollars be totaled.

An estimated 385,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged, and many people are still missing.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said construction of nearly 200,000 homes in 11 earthquake-hit Turkey provinces will start next month.