ISTANBUL: An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 shook Istanbul on April 23, Turkey’s disaster and emergency management agency said. There were no immediate reports of any damage or injuries.
The earthquake had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey. Its epicenter was some 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara.
It was followed by several aftershocks, including one measuring 5.3. The disaster and emergency management agency urged residents to stay away from buildings.
The earthquake was felt in neighboring regions, reports said. Many people rushed out of homes in panic.
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality said there were no “serious cases” in the earthquake in a statement made on its social media accounts.
Kemal Cebi, the mayor of Kucukcekmece district in western Istanbul, told local broadcaster NTV that there were “no negative developments yet” but he reported that there were traffic jams and that many buildings were already at risk due to the density of the area.
Turkey is crossed by two major fault lines, and earthquakes are frequent.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023, and a second powerful tremor that came hours later, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern Turkish provinces, leaving more than 53,000 people dead. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighboring Syria.
While Istanbul was not impacted by that earthquake, the devastation heightened fears of a similar quake with experts citing the city’s proximity to fault lines.
In a bid to prevent damage from any future quake, both the national government and local administrations started urban reconstruction projects to fortify buildings at risk and started campaigns of demolishing buildings at risk of collapse.