One person is reportedly injured from jumping off a balcony during the 6.2 magnitude quake.
A strong earthquake has hit Turkiye, causing buildings in the city of Istanbul to shake.
The quake, taking place at 12:49 [09:49 GMT] on Wednesday in the Marmara Sea off the coast of Istanbul’s Silvri area, registered a preliminary 6.2 magnitude, reports Turkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Authority (AFAD).
It was at a depth of 10km (6.21 miles), according to the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).
The quake was felt in several neighbouring provinces and in the city of Izmir, some 550 kilometres (340 miles) south of Istanbul. The initial quake was followed by eight others with magnitudes of 3.5 to 5.9.
As buildings shook in the city located on the European and Asian shores of the Bosphorus strait, people rushed onto the streets where crowds of worried-looking people stared at their mobile phones for information or made calls, an AFP correspondent said.
“I just felt earthquake, I’ve got to get out,” said a shaken-looking decorator rushing out of a fourth floor apartment where he was working near the city’s Galata Tower, who did not want to give his name.
Turkey’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told national TV network HaberTurk that authorities had not received reports of collapsed buildings, but that there had been reports of damage to buildings. Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said initial inspections did not reveal any damage or adverse conditions on highways, airports, trains or subways.
Broadcaster TGRT reported that one person had been injured as a result of jumping off a balcony during the quake, which occurred during a public holiday in Turkiye, forcing authorities in Istanbul to cancel scheduled events.
Kemal Cebi, the mayor of Kucukcekmece district in western Istanbul, told local broadcaster NTV that there were “no negative developments yet”, but said that there were traffic jams and that many buildings were already at risk due to the density of the area.
In a post on X, Yerlikaya said emergency authorities have begun “field assessments” and offered well wishes to those affected.
AFAD warned people in the region against entering damaged buildings.
The tremors could be felt as far away as Bulgaria, according to the AFP news agency in the capital Sofia.
President Tayyip Erdogan said on X he was monitoring the situation and his office issued advice on what people should do in the case of further quakes.
Previous deadly quake
Turkey is crossed by two significant fault lines, and earthquakes are frequent.
The last tremor to be felt in Istanbul was in mid-November, when a quake caused brief panic but no damage or injuries.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on February 6, 2023, and a second powerful tremor that came hours later, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern Turkish provinces, leaving more than 53,000 people dead.
Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighbouring Syria.
While Istanbul was not impacted by that earthquake, 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, both the national government and local administrations started urban reconstruction projects to fortify buildings at risk and started campaigns of demolishing buildings at risk of collapse.
