(Image source from: Gulftoday.ae)

The German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) announced that a 6.19 magnitude earthquake hit western Turkey on Sunday. Turkey's AFAD mentioned the quake happened around 7:53 PM local time in Balikesir province, close to Istanbul, which is the largest city in the country. An official reported that approximately twelve buildings collapsed due to the earthquake. At least two individuals became trapped in the rubble of one falling building. The earthquake, which had its center in the town of Sindirgi, produced tremors that were felt as far as 200 kilometers (125 miles) away in Istanbul, home to over 16 million residents. The mayor of Sindirgi, Serkan Sak, informed HaberTurk that four people were saved from a collapsed structure in the town while rescuers were attempting to access two more individuals inside the building.

He noted that multiple houses and a mosque’s minaret fell in the nearby village of Golcuk. On social media platform X, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya stated that emergency response teams from AFAD began checking areas around Istanbul and neighboring regions, but so far, there were no reports of serious issues. AFAD indicated that the quake occurred at a depth of 11 km (6.8 miles), while GFZ recorded the earthquake's magnitude at 6.19 with a depth of 10 km. In 2023, a 7.8 magnitude quake resulted in over 53,000 fatalities in Turkey and caused significant destruction or damage to hundreds of thousands of structures in 11 southern and southeastern provinces. In addition, around 6,000 individuals were killed in the northern regions of neighboring Syria.