The historical Yeni Camii (New Mosque), located in the city center of Türkiye's southeastern Malatya, was destroyed in an earthquake on Monday that rocked the nation, killed more than 1,500, left more than 9,000 citizens injured and almost 3,000 buildings demolished, according to preliminary results.
The mosque, which was restored and opened for worship last year, was affected by the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that occurred at 4:17 a.m. local time in the Pazarcık district of Kahramanmaraş.
Constructed on the site of HacıYusuf Mosque, the New Mosque was destroyed in the earthquake on March 3, 1894, which Malatya called the "Great Earthquake," and its reconstruction continued with the help of the public and was ended with contributions of Sultan Abdülhamid II.
In the earthquake that occurred on March 14, 1964, the mosque was severely damaged. There were cracks in the dome and some of its walls and the top stones of the cone fell off. With the restoration work by the General Directorate of Foundations, the mosque was repaired again, and large minarets were installed.
Meanwhile, in Gaziantep, where many workplaces in the historical Coppersmiths' Bazaar were also damaged, the continuous heavy snowfall makes it difficult for the rescue teams to work.
In Şanlıurfa, Raziye Tanlap, a teacher, lost her life after pieces of the mosque's minaret fell on her during the earthquake. Tanlap, who was taken to the hospital by the medical teams, could not be saved despite medical intervention.
In a separate incident, a woman was killed when a wall of a mosque collapsed on her in Adana's Ceyhan district. Ayşe Çiftçier and her daughter Sevinç Çiftçier, who lived in the house on Hürriyet Mahallesi, got scared and left their house after the second big earthquake that took place in Ceyhan at around 1:30 p.m. While they were fleeing, a wall of a mosque collapsed, and the duo was trapped under its debris. Later, Ayşe Çiftçier's nephew Ramazan Yıldırım rushed to their aid. Yıldırım pulled the daughter out from under the rubble, but the mother died of her injuries.
