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A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit below the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul, prompting widespread panic and scores of injuries, although there were no immediate reports of serious damage.
More than 150 people were hospitalised with injuries sustained while trying to jump from buildings, said the governor’s office in Istanbul, a city that is considered at high risk for a major quake.
The earthquake had a shallow depth of 10km (6 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey, with its epicentre about 40km (25 miles) south-west of Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara.
It was felt in the neighbouring provinces of Tekirdağ, Yalova, Bursa and Balıkesir and in the city of İzmir, about 550km (340 miles) south of Istanbul. The interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, said the earthquake lasted 13 seconds and was followed by more than 50 aftershocks, the strongest measuring 5.9 magnitude.
The quake started at 12.49pm on Wednesday, during a public holiday when many children were out of school and celebrating in the streets of Istanbul. Panicked residents rushed from their homes and buildings into the streets. The disaster and emergency management agency urged people to stay away from buildings.
“Due to panic, 151 of our citizens were injured from jumping from heights,” the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement. “Their treatments are ongoing in hospitals, and they are not in life-threatening condition.”
Many residents flocked to parks, school yards and other open areas to avoid being near buildings in case of collapse or subsequent earthquakes. Some people pitched tents in parks.
“Thank God, there does not seem to be any problems for now,” the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said at an event marking the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day holiday. “May God protect our country and our people from all kinds of calamities, disasters, accidents and troubles.”
Leyla Ucar, a personal trainer, said she was exercising with her student on the 20th floor of a building when they felt intense shaking.
“We shook incredibly. It threw us around, we couldn’t understand what was happening, we didn’t think of an earthquake at first because of the shock of the event,” she said. “It was very scary.”
Senol Sari, 51, told Associated Press that he was with his children in the living room of their third-floor apartment when he heard a loud noise and the building started shaking. They fled to a nearby park. “We immediately protected ourselves from the earthquake and waited for it to pass,” Sari said. “Of course, we were scared.”
They later were able to return home calmly, Sari said, but they are worried that a bigger quake will some day strike the city. It’s “an expected earthquake, our concerns continue”, he said.
Cihan Boztepe, 40, was one of many who fled to the streets with his family in order to avoid a potential collapse. Boztepe, standing next to his sobbing child, said that in 2023 he was living in Batman province, an area close to the southern part of Turkey, where major quakes struck at the time, and that Wednesday’s tremor felt weaker and that he wasn’t as scared.
“At first we were shaken, then it stopped, then we were shaken again. My children were a little scared, but I wasn’t. We quickly gathered our things and went down to a safe place. If it were up to me, we would have already returned home.”
Yerlikaya said authorities had not received reports of collapsed buildings. He told HaberTurk television that there had been reports of damage to buildings.
Turkey is crossed by two major fault lines, and earthquakes are frequent.
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake on 6 February 2023, and a second powerful tremor hours later, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces, leaving more than 53,000 people dead. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighbouring Syria.
