A powerful earthquake shakes Istanbul, sending people to the streets

A powerful earthquake rocked Istanbul on Wednesday, sending residents of the most populous turkeys of the city pouring into the streets while the buildings were sworn and the spectators shouted.

The magnitude 6.2 tremor, which struck at 12:49 p.m. local time, rocked the nerves in a country still traumatized by a devastating earthquake of 2023 which struck the Southeast. Turkey overlaps two major flaws and is regularly affected by earthquakes. Istanbul residents, in particular, assumed a major earthquake that experts have warned for years in the old city.

On Wednesday, the city of 16 million seemed to have escaped the threat predicted for a long time, without death reported in the late afternoon. But general panic has prompted many people to jump from their balconies, according to the local governors' office, who said that 151 people had been injured.

More than 50 aftershocks have followed and shaken Istanbul and the area surrounding him throughout the day, the Minister of the Interior, Ali Yerlikaya, saying that the most important recorded a scale of 5.9. The Governors' office said it would close schools for two days to host people who are afraid of returning home. Many people have looked for security in Istanbuls parks.

The 2023 earthquake in southeast Turkey forced the country to reassess its preparation and construction standards after the collapse of the city's blocks. The quake of 7.8 coarse and its aftershocks killed more than 50,000 people in Türkiye and around 6,000 others across the border of neighboring Syria.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkeys, said on Wednesday that emergency services continued to look for damage to Istanbul, the country's economic center. But around 3:30 am, local time, local authorities said they had found only one collapsed and empty building.

All the units of our state are on alert at the moment, said Erdogan in an address in Ankara, the capital. Thank God, so far, there is no problematic situation.

An initial evaluation of the US Geological Survey has shown that the earthquake had a depth of about six miles, with its epicenter about 25 miles southwest of Istanbul in the Marmara Sea, the body of water which links the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It was felt from the city of Bursa, about 40 miles from Istanbul, to Izmir, a coastal city nearly 300 miles away.

In Silivri, the suburb of Istanbul closest to the epicenter, television images after the earthquake showed that the patients of the state hospital were evacuated outside in beds and civilians.

Television New TV programs wondered if the Temblor was a precursor of a more catastrophic earthquake. Historical recordings suggest that Istanbul has an average earthquake of this magnitude approximately every 250 years, with the last major temblor in 1766. And seismologists have warned the authorities for years that Istanbul is to be prepared for an earthquake of a magnitude of seven or more which would constitute a major threat to the lives and buildings of the city.

On Wednesday, the earthquake struck that many in Istanbul were outside by enjoying sunny time during a national holiday which commemorated the opening of the great National Assembly in 1920, the parliament of turkeys.

Some people started to panic by realizing that the tremors they felt were an earthquake. Others have covered themselves or rushed to make phone calls to check relatives.

Shortly after the earthquake, Turkish officials warned people to stay away from the buildings that could be unstable. For residents of older buildings, it said it was away from their own house.

Nur Inan, a 59 -year -old tennis instructor, decided to leave her apartment and let her cat walk outside so both can wait all the potentially larger tremors that could affect their building, which is over 50 years old.

Wearing sunglasses and squeezing her pink gym bag, Ms. Inan sat on a bench in her neighborhood, moving what she described as a failed effort in the city to rehabilitate and protect aging buildings like her family.

More than two thirds of the buildings in Istanbul were built before 2000, before the safety codes of the city's buildings were updated. The city has worked to rehabilitate or rebuild those that have been built before new security measures, but criticisms say that efforts do not move fairly quickly given the risk of earthquake in Istanbul.

This problem should have been solved a long time ago, said Inan, who decided to wait a little longer before returning home. What can I say? I really regret that the state does not solve that.