Aftershock Hits Turkey, Killing 1 and Injuring 171

A strong aftershock struck western Turkey on Thursday, killing one person and injuring at least 171 while stirring panic among the thousands living in tents since a devastating earthquake destroyed their homes in August.

The magnitude 5.7 aftershock was centered on the hard-hit city of Adapazari, about 80 miles east of Istanbul. A retired policeman died of a heart attack there, and 156 people were injured.

In nearby Izmit and Golcuk, at least 15 people were hurt.

“I was so frightened, my heart pounded like it would pop out,” said Serpil Unal, whose husband was one of the more than 17,000 people killed in the Aug. 17 earthquake.

“We shook like mad. Everybody ran out in fear,” Unal said by phone from Golcuk.

Many of the injured jumped out of windows during the quake, which lasted about 10 seconds. The Anatolia news agency said many of the injured suffered broken bones.

The aftershock also rattled buildings in Istanbul, where hundreds of delegates from 54 countries were gathered ahead of the Nov. 18-19 summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Telephone lines were down in Istanbul for more than an hour.

The Aug. 17 quake, with a magnitude of 7.4, flattened tens of thousands of buildings in western Turkey, and more than 100,000 people are still living in tent cities throughout the area.

Thousands of aftershocks have rocked the region since the August quake, but Thursday’s was the strongest since a magnitude 5.8 temblor shook Golcuk on Sept. 13, said Ahmet Mete Isikara, head of Istanbul’s Kandilli Observatory.

Like many Istanbul residents, Ismail Bascakir appeared unfazed by the shaking.

“We have to try to live normally,” said Bascakir, who works in a clothing shop on the ground floor of a five-story building in central Istanbul. “Of course, it does make you uneasy.”