Beirut, Feb. 22, (dpa/GNA) - Afraid of aftershocks jolting areas in war-torn Syria’s north-west and north, people there have pitched tents near their homes to sleep in, activists have said.
“There is a new trend after the earthquake that hit us on Monday,” said Abdel-Kafi, an activist in the province of Idlib in north-western Syria.
“The quake was short, but strong. People have since started to set up tents near their homes and sleep in them for safety reasons,” he added.
People are also using open fields as accommodation to feel safe, according to the activist.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said more than 100,000 families have been displaced in the country following the February 6 earthquakes, including 27,000 families in north-west Syria.
More than two weeks after the devastating quakes in Turkey and neighbouring Syria, the ground in the region has not stabilized yet.
A quake measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale struck in the eastern Mediterranean near the border between Israel and Lebanon early Wednesday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) in Potsdam and the US earthquake monitoring station USGS reported.
In Iraq, which borders Syria, another 4.6-magnitude quake occurred about an hour later. The ground also trembled in Turkey.
There were initially no reports of injuries.
The tremors will not stop, said Marlene Brax, head of the Lebanese Centre for Geophysics, according to Lebanese media.
More energy is trapped underground, which is now being released, she added.
The series of quakes began on February 6 when two earthquakes measuring 7.7 and a little later measuring 7.6 shook south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria. This was followed by more than 6,000 aftershocks, according to Turkish sources.
On Monday, the Seismological Centre in Istanbul reported another quake with a magnitude of 6.4.
More than 48,000 people have died since the disaster, including more than 42,000 in Turkey.
GNA