Borneo Post
written by Staff
Saturday May 21, 2011
ISTANBUL: At least three people have been killed and 80 injured after an earthquake measuring 5.9 struck north-west Turkey, around 300km west of the capital Ankara, Breakingtravelnews reports.
The tremor struck just before midnight local time and centred on the town of Simav, in Kutahya province.
Terrified residents ran into the streets, and many spent the night in cars after being warned not to go back to their homes.
One person died after jumping from a window in panic, officials said.
Kutahya Governor Kenan Ciftci said three people had died.
State media reported that at least one derelict building collapsed by the earthquake, which was followed by around 50 aftershocks.
Istanbul’s 13 million inhabitants live in constant fear of a major earthquake, which experts predict will hit Turkey’s largest metropolis in the near future with a magnitude of up to 7.2.
Turkey has recently unveiled plans to build two new “earthquake proof” cities near Istanbul and relocate up to 1.5 million residents who are most at risk from a possible earthquake in the metropolis, the prime minister said on Wednesday.
The locations for the two satellite cities had been chosen after safety studies, prime minister Recep Erdogan said, adding that one of them would be built on the shores of the Black Sea on the European side of the city. The second one would be on the Asian side of the Bosphorus Strait.
The construction of the two cities would begin after June’s parliamentary election, he added.
Meanwhile, an earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale hit the northern Philippines.
The epicentre of the quake, which struck at 9.08pm a few kilometres northeast of Ilagan, the capital of Isabela province, a duty officer with the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said.
There were no immediate reports of damage.
The US Geological Survey, which uses a different scale, said the quake had a magnitude of 5.3 and put its depth at 45 km.
In Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Xinhua reports that a moderate earthquake jolted eastern New Guinea region of Morobe in Papua New Guinea early on Saturday morning, according to US Geological Survey.
There was no reports of injuries or damage after the 5.8 magnitude quake hit at 5.43 am local time with the depth of 1 km.
The epicentre of the quake was 54 km southwest of Lae in eastern New Guinea region and 252 km north of Port Moresby, the capital of the country.
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