The magnitude 6.2 tremor on Wednesday sent citizens dashing from shaking homes, reviving memories of a historic quake that devastated the country’s southeast two years ago – and raising anxieties about the city’s lack of preparedness.

It hit a city that has recently seen mass protests over the arrest of its mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu. Scheduled demonstrations still occur twice weekly, with more spontaneous protests cropping up regularly.

There were no deaths from Wednesday’s tremor, the biggest in years in Istanbul, which sits just north of a fault line crossing the Marmara Sea. Some 5 million of the city’s 16 million residents live in risky homes, data showed in 2023.

While the government said preparing the city for a bigger earthquake was urgent, the opposition party – which runs the municipality and has been frustrated by what it calls inaction by the central government – said its urban transformation plan must finally be adopted.

Imamoglu and some of the city’s other disaster-response officials are in prison pending trial on charges brought last month that were broadly criticised as politicised and anti-democratic.

From his cell outside the city, Imamoglu – who is President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival and leads him in some polls – said on social media it was his “greatest sadness” not to be able to serve residents at this time.

Dozens of people were hurt leaping from homes on Wednesday, which was the nationwide Children’s Day holiday in Turkey, while concrete chunks from some buildings crashed to the ground. Seven buildings had minor damage as a result, authorities said.

“The immediate shelter needs of 101,000 citizens have been effectively and comprehensively met,” interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said of people who overnighted in mosques, schools and dormitories. Others slept in tents or vehicles.

Murat Kurum, the urbanisation minister, said about a third of the 1.5 million buildings deemed at risk “require urgent transformation – and we have no time to lose.”

The municipal government sought to work with Erdogan’s government on infrastructure transformation to prepare for earthquakes, he said. “With a sense of national and international mobilisation, our Istanbul earthquake council proposal must be put into action.”

February 2023’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake was the deadliest and most destructive in Turkey’s modern history, killing more than 55,000 people in the south and in neighbouring Syria, and leaving hundreds of thousands still displaced.

The latest tremor also revived memories of a 1999 earthquake that killed 17,000 near Istanbul, Europe’s largest city which also spans across the Bosphorus Strait to Asia.

HAH ALAM: Prihatin dengan nasib pelanggan yang terjejas akibat letupan gas di Putra Heights pada Hari Raya Aidilfitri kedua lalu, syarikat bateri kenderaan dan penyedia bantuan perkhidmatan jalan raya, Bateriku.com menghulurkan bantuan bateri kereta baharu menerusi inisiatif Tanggungjawab Sosial Korporat (CSR) khas yang bernilai hampir RM20,000. 

Menurut Bateriku.Com, letupan yang berlaku di kawasan Putra Heights pada 1 April lalu menyebabkan kemusnahan besar, terutamanya di Taman Putra Harmoni dan Kampung Kuala Sungai Baru. 

“Letupan tersebut bukan sahaja meranapkan sebahagian rumah penduduk, malah kenderaan yang berada dalam radius 400 meter dari lokasi kejadian turut rosak teruk akibat bahang panas daripada letupan tersebut.

“Sebagai syarikat yang berpegang pada nilai komuniti, Bateriku.com segera bertindak dengan meneliti data pelanggan yang pernah mendapatkan perkhidmatan bateri kami di kawasan yang terlibat. Hasil semakan, sebanyak 58 pelanggan dikenal pasti sebagai pemilik kenderaan yang berada dalam kawasan terjejas,” katanya di sini semalam.

Jelas Bateriku.Com, pada 22 April, pihaknya telah ke kawasan perumahan Putra Harmoni untuk melaksanakan program pertukaran bateri secara ‘1 to 1’ bagi pelanggan yang terkesan.

Katanya lagi, pelanggan yang hadir diberi bateri baharu secara percuma sebagai usaha membantu meringankan beban kos baik pulih selepas insiden letupan yang mengejutkan komuniti setempat.

“Selain itu, Bateriku.com turut menawarkan baucar diskaun untuk penukaran bateri dan pakej servis kereta di BGarage bagi pelanggan dalam senarai yang tidak dapat hadir atau kenderaan mereka mengalami kerosakan yang lebih serius.

“Kami menerima maklumat tentang kejadian letupan ini dan segera melakukan semakan dalam sistem untuk mengenal pasti pelanggan yang terlibat. Ini adalah usaha kami untuk membantu, walaupun kecil, agar pelanggan kami tidak berasa terpinggir di saat mereka menghadapi kesusahan,” katanya. – UTUSAN

JULIMES, Mexico (Reuters) - Dead animals lie scattered across the planes of this cattle ranching town in northern Mexico, victims of a long-term drought that is forcing farmers here to consider uprooting their lives to look elsewhere for land and water.

More than 64% of Mexico's territory is experiencing some level of drought, according to government data. Northern states are the hardest hit, particularly Chihuahua, with most of its territory engulfed by the most extreme levels of drought.

President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs and sanctions if Mexico does not increase water deliveries which U.S. officials say have devastated Texan farmers. The Mexican government says drought has ravaged its ability to comply.

In the agricultural town of Julimes in Chihuahua, farmers are wondering how much longer they can survive.

"I don't think we'll be able to hold out much longer," said cattle farmer Leopoldo Ochoa, 62, as he rode with his granddaughter on horseback behind his herd.

Farmers in northern Chihuahua have already had to move their herds out of the mountainous areas where they typically graze due to a lack of water and grass. Ochoa lives in Valle de Zaragoza, which is dependent on the strained La Boquilla Dam.

"If there is no more water, we will have to leave this ranch and look elsewhere. Imagine leaving here at my age, where I have lived all my life," said Manuel Araiza, 60.

"It is sad, but it is the reality that all of this is coming to an end," he added.

As diplomats negotiate water deliveries from Mexico to the U.S., farmers in Chihuahua consider their own futures.

"My children tell me this is no longer profitable and that I should sell the animals," said cattle rancher Estreberto Saenz Monje, 57. "The truth is, we've never seen anything like this before."

(This story has been refiled to correct the dateline to April 24)

(Reporting by Jose Luis Gonzalez, writing by Cassandra Garrison, editing by Sandra Maler)