Following two more earthquakes that struck Turkey and left at least three dead, rescuers are once more looking for anyone who may be buried beneath the wreckage.
On February 6, two devastating earthquakes that had a magnitude of 6.4 and 5.8 each struck in the southeast, close to the border with Syria.
44,000 people were killed by the earlier earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, and tens of thousands more were left homeless.
On Monday, structures in both nations that had been weakened by the tremors toppled.
The 5.8 earthquake struck three minutes after the 6.4 tremor, according to Turkey’s disaster and emergency agency, at 20:04 local time (17:04 GMT).
Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced the three fatalities and urged residents to stay away from potentially hazardous buildings, saying they happened in Antakya, Defne, and Samandag.
213 people, according to Mr. Soylu, were also hurt.
Reports from the city of Antakya described scenes of dread and panic as paramedics and rescue workers raced to the worst-affected regions, where the walls of severely damaged buildings had crumbled.
Muna al-Omar, a local, told the Reuters news agency while sobbing and clutching her son, 7, that she “felt the earth was going to split apart under my feet.” When the fresh earthquakes occurred, she was in a tent in a park in the middle of the city.
Returning with emotion to the ruins of Antakya
Turkey completes all but two locations of its earthquake relief efforts.
The most recent earthquake struck while 18-year-old Ali Mazlum was searching for the remains of family members from earlier quakes, he told the AFP news agency.
He remarked, “You don’t know what to do… we clutched each other and the walls started to fall right in front of us.”
After Monday’s quakes, which were also apparently felt in Egypt and Lebanon, it is believed that 470 injured persons from Syria attended hospitals.
