Friday, May 20, 2011

Turkey: two dead and 79 injured in an earthquake of magnitude 5.9

The magnitude 5.9 quake that struck Thursday night the north-western Turkey, killing two people and wounded 79, according to Minister of Environment. Many buildings were hit, including Simav, epicenter of the earthquake. The Red Crescent has announced the shipment of food and 10,000 blankets there. The humanitarian organization should install 5,000 tents before Saturday morning., The epicenter of the earthquake, which occurred around 22 h 15, Paris time, is located Simav, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, depending on Kütahya Province, and located about 310 km west of Ankara, the agency said, citing the Kandilli seismological institute.

The quake was felt in neighboring provinces to Istanbul, further north, the main metropolis of Turkey, over 12 million people. Several aftershocks were felt afterwards. The earthquake caused panic in Kütahya and in other areas where it was felt, the inhabitants of these regions emerging in the streets, said the television.

Lines and telephone networks in the earthquake zone were quickly saturated, preventing the collection of information in the affected areas. Earthquakes of this magnitude usually causes damage to Turkey, where houses are built below the earthquake standards. In 1970 a similar disaster killed more than 1,000 people in the province of Kutahya.

Turkey, which is crossed by several faults, has frequent earthquakes. Two powerful earthquakes in heavily populated and industrialized northwest of the country had about 20,000 deaths in August and November 1999, and experts agree that the Istanbul region is threatened by a strong earthquake.

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