Turkey hit by another 6.4 magnitude earthquake weeks after deadly tremors

6.4 magnitude earthquake hits Turkey's southern Hatay province, said the country's disaster agency

As the Turkish government continues the rescue operation of people trapped under the buildings flattened by the unprecedented earthquakes which hit the country two weeks ago, another 6.4 magnitude tremor struck the country's southern Hatay province on late Monday evening, according to the disaster agency.

This comes after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey's southeastern Kahramanmaras province struck in the early hours of February 6, followed by over 40 aftershocks burying thousands under the rubble of flattened buildings in Turkey and neighbouring Syria.

As rescue operations continue, concerns are growing over the possible spread of infection in quake-hit areas.

Italian seismologist Professor Carlo Doglioni claimed that Turkey, as per estimates, has actually slipped by five to six meters compared to Syria after the horizontal sliding of the two plates that caused the magnitude 7.8 quake in the two neighboring countries. The violent earthquake was caused by the Anatolian plate moving towards the Southwest with respect to the Arabica plate.

The President of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Professor Doglioni, said that the two earthquakes 7.8 and 7.2 on the Richter scale respectively, were part of a single seismic sequence unleashed at the intersection of four plates that collide continuously — Anatolian, Arabica, Eurasian and African. (India Today)