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Four people were killed and 120 injured in Turkey when a powerful earthquake struck the west coast of the country and parts of Greece, the Turkish health minister said.
“Unfortunately, four of our citizens lost their lives in the earthquake” that destroyed buildings in the Turkish seaside resort city of Izmir, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted.
Images on social media showed water running through city streets from an apparent storm surge.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Twitter that six buildings collapsed in two districts of Izmir province.
He said there were no reports of casualties from six other provinces where the earthquake was felt, but said there were small cracks in some buildings.
Turkey’s Presidency of Emergency and Disaster Management (AFAD) put the earthquake’s magnitude at 6.6, while the US Geological Survey said it was 7.0.
It struck this morning and was felt along Turkey’s Aegean coast and the northwestern Marmara region, media reports said.
The epicenter was about 17km off the coast of Izmir province, at a depth of 16km, AFAD said.
The US Geological Survey said the depth was 10 km and the epicenter was 33.5 km off the coast of Turkey.
Residents of the Greek island of Samos, which has a population of about 45,000, were urged to stay away from coastal areas, Eftyhmios Lekkas, head of the Greek organization for anti-seismic planning, told Skai TV.
“It was a very big earthquake, it is difficult to have a bigger one,” Lekkas said.
High tidal wave warnings were in place on Samos.
Ali Yerlikaya, the governor of Istanbul, where the earthquake was also felt, said there were no negative reports.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted that he was ready to help “with all means available to our state.”
Turkey is situated in one of the most active earthquake zones in the world.
In 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 people, including 1,000 in Istanbul.
Another earthquake in 2011 in the southeastern province of Van caused more than 600 deaths.
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