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Earthquake of magnitude 6.1 strikes Turkey
Turkey's AFAD said the quake occurred at around 7:53 PM local time in the Balikesir province, near Istanbul, the country's biggest city.
The German Research Centre for Geosciences(GFZ) reported that a magnitude 6.19 earthquake struck western Turkey on Sunday.
According to local media reports, cited by Reuters, the quake was felt across multiple provinces.
Turkey's AFAD said the quake occurred at around 7:53 PM local time in the Balikesir province, near Istanbul, the country's biggest city.
The earthquake caused about a dozen buildings to collapse, an official said. At least two people were trapped in the debris of a collapsed building.
The earthquake, with an epicentre in the town of Sindirgi, sent shocks that were felt some 200 kilometres (125 miles) away in Istanbul, a city of more than 16 million people.
Sindirgi’s mayor, Serkan Sak, told HaberTurk that four people were rescued from a collapsed building in the town while rescuers were trying to reach two others inside the structure.
He said several houses and a mosque minaret collapsed in the nearby village of Golcuk.
On X, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote that emergency teams from AFAD started inspections around Istanbul and the neighbouring provinces, but no negative reports had come through so far.
AFAD said the quake struck at a depth of 11 km (6.8 miles), while the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) registered the earthquake's magnitude at 6.19 and a depth of 10 km.
In 2023, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighbouring Syria.
