Earthquake rattles Syria, also felt in Jordan and Lebanon

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DAMASCUS (Reuters) -A 4.8 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Hama in western Syria late on Monday, with residents across Syria, Jordan and Lebanon feeling the impact and tremors lasting into Tuesday morning.

Syria’s health ministry said on Tuesday said around 65 people sustained minor to moderate injuries as they fled in panic following the earthquake.

In Salamiya, a town approximately 30 km (18 miles) east of Hama city, residents rushed out into the dark streets out of fear, said Nasser Duyub, a state employee living there.

“My son was sleeping, I don’t know how I grabbed him and got out of the house,” Duyub told Reuters.

Salamiya’s national hospital treated around 67 cases of shock, the health ministry added.

Residents said they saw a balcony collapse and ambulances treating people who had fainted. SANA news agency, citing Souhad Zaidan, the head of Salamiya’s city council, reported minor damage such as cracked walls.

The Syrian civil defence operating in the northern opposition-held areas of the war-torn country said they had deployed to several areas but had not received any reports of damage.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said it had registered the earthquake’s epicentre in east Hama. The German Research Centre for Geosciences gave its magnitude as 4.8, at a depth of 10 km (6 miles).

Syria’s National Earthquake Center said monitoring stations recorded 13 tremors east of Hama city until Tuesday morning.

Jordan’s state news agency reported a 3.9 magnitude aftershock less than an hour after the initial quake.

Residents across Lebanon felt the quake. Both Lebanon and Syria have been hit by Israeli air strikes over the last 10 months as regional hostilities play out in parallel with the Gaza war, and several residents said they initially thought the quake was an air strike.

In Syria, some said they had flashbacks to February 2023, when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 50,000 people – mostly in Turkey but with thousands also perishing in northern Syria. That earthquake caused widespread destruction in both countries.

“It was the same sound, as if it was coming out of the earth,” said Umm Hamzah, a resident of the Syrian capital Damascus. “I got dizzy just like last time, but the scare was worse because I knew what happened in the previous quake.”

(Reporting by Beirut bureau, Kinda Makieh, Firas Makdesi and Yamam Shaar in Syria, Chandni Shah in Bengaluru, and Enas Alashray in Cairo; Writing by Maya Gebeily and Riham Alkousaa; Editing by Leslie Adler, Stephen Coates, Sandra Maler and Alison Williams)