Southern Turkey rocked by magnitude 5.5 earthquake

A magnitude 5.5 earthquake shook the southern Turkish province of Adana, striking just under six months after the devastating quakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria.

The Kandilli earthquake monitoring centre in Istanbul said the quake occurred at 8am (05:44 GMT) on Tuesday. Its epicentre was in the district of Kozan, about 64km (40 miles) from the city of Adana and located near the Syrian border.The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said the earthquake was at a depth of 12km (7.46 miles).

No injuries or damage have been reported so far.

Seismologists estimate that earthquakes of a magnitude between 5.4 and 6.0 can cause slight damage to well-designed buildings and potentially major damage to poorly constructed buildings over small regions.

The quake comes months after February’s devastating earthquakes, which reached a 7.8 magnitude that caused a swath of destruction in the region and parts of northern Syria.

In Turkey alone, more than 50,000 people died, and tens of thousands of buildings were destroyed.

Many of the houses that were damaged in the February earthquakes have yet to be fully demolished.