dpa
Istanbul
An earthquake of 6.4-magnitude has shaken the south-eastern Turkish province of Hatay, the Kandilli earthquake monitoring centre said on Monday, causing further damage in the quake-ravaged region.
The earthquake’s epicentre was located in the district of Samandag but it was felt by residents in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.
The latest quake comes two weeks after a devastating earthquake in the same area that has killed more than 47,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
Abdel Kafi, a Syrian activist in north-west Syria said, "It was strong like the first one but did not last long... it scared people and people rushed to the streets.” He was referring to the quakes on February 6 that killed 41,156 people in Turkey alone, the disaster authority AFAD said earlier.
The official death toll in Syria stands at 5,900 but it has not been updated in days. Thousands more are feared dead in both countries.
The latest quake came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, just before the Turkish leader flew to Hatay, already ravaged by the earlier earthquake.
Blinken had met civilian aid workers from the Syrian rescue group White Helmets during his visit to the quake-hit region, who told him about the desperate situation faced by survivors in areas where the decade-long civil war has complicated international efforts to deliver aid and assistance.
White Helmets deputy Farouk Habib described US support as "crucial” during the meeting with Blinken. Habib told dpa afterwards that Blinken reiterated US support for uninhibited humanitarian aid access to the region.
A tour of the destruction in Turkey had left Blinken grasping for words to describe what he saw. He had earlier announced that the US would increase aid for the disaster from $100 million to $185 million.
Blinken praised the work and expertise of the Syrian White Helmets and the search and rescue teams, speaking of "heroic efforts” after the disaster, particularly given that aid was slow to arrive in the opposition areas of north-western Syria.
In Syria alone, 8.8 million people have been affected by the earthquakes, the deputy UN representative for Syria, Najat Rochdi, wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Activist Mustafa Dahnoun, who is from Idlib, meanwhile told dpa over the phone that "aid is still very slow” and that people in the area "are in great need of everything.” "The world community should work harder and push for more aid to our region,” he said.
In Turkey, search and rescue efforts have been called off in most of the affected provinces. Only in the provinces of Kahramanmaras and Hatay will the search continue for victims, AFAD chairman Yunus Sezer told journalists in Ankara on Sunday.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in Hatay on Monday for another visit. He was seen in the midst of a crowd of people in pictures circulated on Twitter by the Turkish Communications Ministry.
The president said Hatay will be "revived in all its colours,” pledging to rebuild the city as quickly as possible.
Erdogan had met Blinken at the airport in Ankara earlier, according to the presidential Office.
Sezer estimated that more than 1.2 million people have fled the affected region in Turkey and over 1 million people are currently in emergency shelters.
For those left in the quake-hit regions, officials are increasingly concerned about health risks.
The EU health agency ECDC warned on Monday that infectious diseases are likely to spread in this phase of the recovery period. While immediate health needs after the quakes were related to trauma and interrupted health care, infectious diseases could now become a concern in the next two to four weeks, the agency said in Stockholm.
The damaged infrastructure, such as water and electricity lines, causes limited access to clean water, inadequate sanitation and lack of refrigeration for food, said the ECDC wrote. Food-borne and waterborne diseases, respiratory infections and vaccine-preventable infections thus all have the potential to spread, especially in temporary housing shelters.
Cholera was one of the main health risks mentioned, especially since this was already a problem in war-torn Syria.
In Turkey, officials were working hard to restore the quake-hit regions’ water supply. The Urban Planning Ministry said on Monday that the water supply had been restored to 98%, with about 800 incidents of damages to water supplies having been found.
Turkish officials also arrested 131 social media users on Monday, for allegedly inciting panic online after the earthquakes. The police said the accused had shared "provocative” posts "with the aim of spreading fear and panic among the population.” It was unclear exactly which posts were involved. Of 131, 25 were kept in custody.
The topic of social media has been contested in Turkey since the earthquake. Much of the country’s traditional media is under government control, making social media an important medium for different sources of information.
When Twitter was temporarily blocked two days after the quake, opposition politicians accused the government of trying to suppress criticism of the crisis management.
On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser were planning to visit the affected areas of Turkey to assess aid work.
The German leaders also plan to check on diplomatic efforts to expedite visas to allow displaced Turks to stay with relatives in Germany, including with a mobile visa processing bus.