A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 has rocked eastern Turkey and Syria, according to the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).
Turkey’s Malatya province was shaken by the quake on Wednesday morning, with no damages or casualties yet reported.
It was felt in the cities of Diyarbakir, Elazig and Malatya, HaberTurk television reported.
In Diyarbakir, people left homes in panic, the report said, with AFAD adding: ‘Our teams are on alert and field scanning operations are ongoing’.
Syria’s state news agency says the earthquake was felt in the provinces of Hasakah, Deir Al Zor and Aleppo.
The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre said the quake was at a depth of 5.6 miles below the earth.
AFAD took to X, formerly Twitter, following the first quake to post an update for panicked citizens.
It reported that a total of 374 notifications were made to the 112 Emergency Call Center due to the earthquake, and that four people had been rescued from a partially damaged building in Elazığ province.
However, a total of three buildings were left damaged in the provinces of Malatya, Şanlıurfa and Elazığ, and a rockfall occurred in the Pötürge and Kale districts of Malatya province.
It comes after a devastating earthquake struck Turkey and Syria last year, in the space of just 12 hours.
The first earthquake, measuring 7.8 magnitude, hit south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, and the second one struck four kilometres outside Ekinozu in central Turkey.
It was the most devastating to hit earthquake-prone Turkey in more than 20 years and was as strong as one in 1939, the most powerful recorded there.
It struck at 04:17 am local time (0117 GMT) at a depth of about 11 miles, the US Geological Survey said at the time.
A strong 6.7 aftershock rumbled about 10 minutes later, causing more havoc.
Turkey’s own agency said 40 aftershocks were felt.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management agency said the earthquake killed scores of people across seven Turkish provinces.
A few weeks later, on the 20th February, another large earthquake, measuring 6.3M on the Richter scale, hit the region.
More than 55,000 people are estimated to have lost their lives in the quakes, while many more were injured and displaced.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.