A 5.5-magnitude earthquake hits central Turkey, and the death toll from the Kahramanmaraş earthquake exceeds 50,000

The Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center said that a new 5.5-magnitude earthquake shook central Turkey today, Saturday, while announcing a new death toll from the devastating Kahramanmaraş earthquake.

The center, which specializes in seismological monitoring, added that the new earthquake occurred at a depth of 10 km.

In turn, the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD) said that the earthquake had a magnitude of 5.3 and shook the state of Nigde, central Turkey.

The new earthquake comes hours after the announcement of another 4.2-magnitude earthquake that struck the state of Kahramanmaraş, the epicenter of the devastating February 6 earthquake, which killed tens of thousands of people and caused widespread destruction in 10 Turkish states and northwestern Syria.

On Friday, the Disaster and Emergency Management Department confirmed that two earthquakes measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale occurred in the states of Sivas and Malatya.

She added that while the process of removing rubble from the states affected by the earthquake continues, more than half a million citizens have been evacuated from the affected areas to safer areas.

In a related context, Turkish Environment Minister Murat Corum said that his government had completed about 80 to 90 percent of the efforts to inspect the damage resulting from the earthquake.

He confirmed that 90 percent of the buildings in the affected areas either collapsed or suffered significant damage.

The new tremors come as it was announced that the number of victims of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria has risen to more than 50,000.

The Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said late Friday evening that Turkey had recorded 44,218 deaths, while the death toll from the earthquake in Syria had risen to 5,900.

He also announced that more than 9,136 aftershocks have been recorded so far.

In Syria, civil defense teams in a number of towns in western Idlib continue to remove rubble and cracked concrete blocks from buildings that were damaged by the earthquake that hit the region on the sixth of this month.

The Support Coordination Unit in the Syrian opposition areas said that 137 towns and cities in northwest Syria were affected as a result of the earthquake, and that hundreds of thousands of residents will remain homeless for a long time.