Earthquake hits Turkey leaving 2 people dead

Earthquake hits Turkey leaving 2 people dead

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.9 shook North-West Turkey last Thursday, two people were dead and seventy-nine injured. The earthquake struck just before midnight local time and centered on the town of Simav, in Kutahya province, some 310km (190 miles) west of the capital Ankara.

Residents ran into streets and many spent the night inside their cars after being informed not to go back to their homes. Officials said that one person died after jumping off from the window.

Environment Minister Veysel Eroglu put the death toll at two, and said that of the 79 injured, only one was in a serious condition. Contrary to reports, Kutahya Governor Kenan Ciftci said three people had died.

The state media reported that one building collapsed and the windows in some buildings were shattered by the quake, which struck at 8:15 p.m. (GMT). "It was so strong that we could not even move in the first few seconds," lawmaker Idris Bal told NTV television. "People are waiting in their cars now."

The Kandilli observatory in Istanbul reported that the quake was followed by around fifty aftershocks.
Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines. There were earthquake reports in Turkey before and a lot of people were left dead. In1999, two earthquakes shattered North-West Turkey with a magnitude of more than 7, which killed 20,000 people. Another 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit Easter Turkey last March 2010, and killed 51 people.

Posted by M.Ferrer on Friday May 20 2011, 11:41 AM EST. Ref: BBC. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0