After new twin earthquakes jolted Türkiye’s southernmost city of Hatay Monday, patients being treated at two hospitals were evacuated as a precaution.
Patients at the Mustafa Kemal University Research and Application Hospital and Iskenderun State Hospital were evacuated.
As a precaution, nine patients who were being treated in the intensive care unit of the new service building in the Numune District of Iskenderun State Hospital were transferred to Dörtyol State Hospital.
Emergency services were subsequently provided in a field hospital that was set up in the hospital's garden.
Two new earthquakes shook Hatay province near the Syrian border, just two weeks after another pair of major earthquakes in the area, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said Monday.
According to AFAD, the epicenter of the first earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.4 was the Defne district. It took place at around 8:04 p.m. local time (5:04 p.m. GMT), at a depth of 16.7 kilometers (10.4 miles), AFAD said.
Another magnitude 5.8 earthquake centered in the Samandağ district in Türkiye's Hatay shook the area at a depth of 7 kilometers just three minutes after the magnitude 6.4 quake.
There have been reports on social media about demolished buildings in the Samandağ district. As a result, AFAD, the National Medical Rescue Team (UMKE), Police Search and Rescue, miners from Kütahya and firefighters from Istanbul have launched a scanning operation in the area to search for any signs of damage.
Officials said more buildings collapsed, trapping occupants, and several people were injured in both Türkiye and Syria, with three people confirmed dead and 213 injured in Türkiye's Hatay.
Syria's state news agency, SANA, reported that six people were injured in Aleppo from falling debris.
The Feb. 6 quakes have killed nearly 45,000 people in both countries — the vast majority of them in Türkiye. Turkish authorities have recorded more than 6,000 aftershocks since.
HaberTurk journalists reporting from Hatay said they were jolted violently by Monday's quake and held on to each other to avoid falling.
In the Turkish city of Adana, eyewitness Alejandro Malaver said people left homes for the streets, carrying blankets into their cars. Malaver said everyone is really scared and that “no one wants to get back into their houses.”
The Syrian opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, reported that several people were injured in Syria’s opposition-held northwest after they jumped from buildings or when they were struck by falling debris in the town of Jinderis, one of the towns worst affected by the Feb. 6 earthquakes.
The White Helmets added that several damaged and abandoned buildings collapsed in Syria’s northwest without injuring anyone.
The Syrian American Medical Society, which runs hospitals in northern Syria, said it had treated a number of patients – including a 7-year-old boy – who suffered heart attacks brought on by fear following the new quake.
