At least eight people have died this Sunday in eastern Turkey from an earthquake of magnitude 5.7 on the Richter scale with epicenter in Iran, as reported by Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu. At least 21 people have been injured and several remain trapped under the rubble, according to the head of the Interior.
"Eight citizens have died, including three minors," Soylu said in a press conference broadcast by the Turkish Ministry itself on social media. The minister has indicated that the tremor, which took place at 05.52 Spanish peninsular time, has reached a magnitude of 5.9 and has affected several villages in the municipality of Baskale, in the province of Van, on the border with Iran.
# CanlıYayın📡 | Bakanımız Sn. @suleymansoylu İran merkezli, Van sınırları içerisinde hissedilen deprem hakkında açıklama yapıyorhttps: //t.co/iMW1VcDhwH
- TC İçişleri Bakanlığı (@TC_icisleri) February 23, 2020Several AFAD Turkish emergency service teams have moved to the area to work in the collapsed places, and the minister has shown Turkey's willingness to collaborate with Iran in rescuing people across the border, if a request arrived in this sense.
Local authorities of Baskale have assured the Turkish agency Anadolu that the municipality has about 80 homes and 700 neighbors, but that, according to the information currently available, there are no people trapped in rubble. In neighboring Iran, the victims were registered in the town of Qotur, in the province of West Azerbaijan, according to the governor of this region, Mohamad Mahdi Shahriarí, who has not offered an exact balance of injuries. The ruler has explained to the official IRNA agency that some homes in this town have been partially or completely destroyed. Rescue and relief operations are underway in the area affected by the catastrophe, where the Iranian Red Crescent has sent five of its teams.
The earthquake, which has had at least seven aftershocks and has been felt in nearby cities such as Tabriz and Urumía, has taken place at a depth of 6 kilometers. Iran has a strong seismic activity since it is located at the limit of several tectonic plates and is crossed by several
failures The last earthquake of great devastation power, of magnitude 7.3, occurred in November 2017 in Kermanshah province, where it caused 620 deaths and more than 12,000 wounded. In Turkey, an earthquake of magnitude 6.8 caused 35 deaths and more than a thousand injured last
January 24