Turkey hit by another strong earthquake as shattered country rebuilds after disaster that killed 50,000
ANOTHER powerful earthquake has hit Turkey just weeks after the disaster that killed more than 50,000 people.
A strong 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck central Turkey on Saturday as the shattered country attempts to rebuild from a series of horror quakes this month.
It was at a depth of 10km, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre said, after a further earthquake hit Turkey's Hatay province on Thursday.
Just days earlier on Monday, several people were killed and hundreds injured as two more earthquakes struck the Turkey-Syria border.
The latest quakes come after two catastrophic earthquakes devastated the country on February 6, leaving more than a million homeless and more than 50,000 dead.
The earthquakes, which also rocked neighbouring Syria, destroyed buildings and infrastructure.
More world news
The death toll from the tragedy continues to rise as more bodies are retrieved from the rubble of demolished buildings.
On Friday, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said the death toll in Turkey due to earthquakes rose to 44,218.
With Syria's latest announced death toll of 5,914, the combined death toll in the two countries rose to above 50,000.
In an interview with state broadcaster TRT on Wednesday, Soylu said teams were sifting through two buildings in hard-hit Hatay province in search of further bodies.
Most read in The Sun
Search operations elsewhere have come to an end, he said.
More than 160,000 buildings containing 520,000 apartments collapsed or were severely damaged in the earthquakes that struck hours apart on February 6.
President Tayyip Erdogan said construction work on nearly 200,000 apartments in 11 earthquake-hit provinces of Turkey would begin next month.
Last week a teenage girl was pulled alive from the rubble having been trapped for 248 hours.
Aleyna Olmez, 17, was found among the wreckage of a collapsed apartment building by rescue workers having survived for more than 10 days after the disaster.
NATO has pledged to send more than 1,000 containers that will serve as temporary shelters for at least 4,000 people left homeless by the earthquake.
