Istanbul, Fearing the Big One, Is Hit by 6.2 Magnitude Quake

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 shook Istanbul and other areas on Wednesday, Turkey's disaster and emergency management agency said. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries in the metropolis of 16 million. The earthquake had a shallow depth of about 6 miles, according to the United States Geological Survey, with its epicenter about 25 miles southwest of Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara. There were several aftershocks, including one measuring 5.3.

The incident, which started at 12:49pm local time during a public holiday when many children were out of school and celebrating in the streets, caused widespread panic in Istanbul, which is on tenterhooks due to the looming threat of a major earthquake, reports the AP. Panicked residents rushed from their homes and buildings into the streets. The disaster and emergency management agency urged people to stay away from buildings.

Leyla Ucar, a personal trainer, says she was exercising with a. student on the 20th floor of a building when they felt intense shaking. "We shook incredibly. It threw us around, we couldn't understand what was happening, we didn't think of an earthquake at first because of the shock of the event," she says. As one 51-year-old resident tells the AP, "Of course, we were scared during the earthquake. We were worried that it would continue. Since the (great) Istanbul earthquake is (still) an expected earthquake, our concerns continue."

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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 hours later, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces, leaving more than 53,000 people dead. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighboring Syria. Istanbul was not impacted by that earthquake, but 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, the national government and local administrations started urban reconstruction projects to fortify buildings at risk and launched campaigns to demolish buildings at risk of collapse.

(More earthquake stories.)