A 6.2-magnitude earthquake shook Istanbul on Wednesday, one of the strongest quakes to rock Turkey’s most populous city in recent years.
The quake caused panic as people rushed out of buildings across the city of 16 million, which lies on both European and Asian sides of the Bosphorus Strait.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage, but aftershocks continued to shake the area. Some shops closed, and residents gathered in parks or stayed outside their homes in fear of further tremors.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake’s epicenter was in the Sea of Marmara, about 25 miles southwest of Istanbul, with a depth of around six miles. The tremors were felt far from the city, reaching Bursa, 40 miles away, and Izmir, nearly 300 miles to the south.
Turkey is prone to earthquakes as it sits on two major fault lines. A catastrophic quake in 2023 killed over 50,000 people in the southeast of the country and 6,000 more in neighboring Syria.
