ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP)— A 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul on Wednesday, with its impact and that of multiple aftershocks forcing thousands out onto the streets in panic across Turkey’s largest city.

The quake was followed by more than 50 aftershocks, some very powerful, the interior minister said, although there were no reports of major damage or serious injury.

“An earthquake of 6.2 magnitude occurred in Silivri, Sea of Marmara, Istanbul,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X, adding that it was felt in the surrounding provinces.

The initial quake struck at 12:49 pm (09:49 GMT) at a depth of 6.92 kilometres under the sea, which lies to the south of the city, and lasted 13 seconds, he said.

“By 3:12 pm (12:12 GMT), 51 aftershocks — the largest of which was 5.9 magnitude — had been recorded,” he said.

As buildings shook, people rushed onto the streets where crowds of worried-looking people stared at their mobile phones for information or made calls, an AFP correspondent said.

“I just felt an earthquake, I’ve got to get out,” a shaken-looking decorator, who did not want to give his name, said while fleeing a fourth-storey apartment where he was working near the city’s Galata Tower.

Istanbul governor Davut Gul said nobody had died in the quake or the aftershocks but confirmed that hospitals were treating “151 people injured when they jumped or tried to jump from a height in panic”.

The injuries were not life-threatening, he added.

“There is no destruction to residential buildings in the city but an abandoned building collapsed in Fatih District without causing any deaths or injuries,” the governor’s office said on X.

Footage posted by the state news agency Anadolu showed the minaret of a mosque in the Beylikduzu district just west of the historic peninsula swaying during the initial quake.

But there were no reports of other buildings collapsing in the sprawling city of 16 million people, Yerlikaya told TRT public television.

Schools and universities, which were closed on Wednesday when Turkey was marking National Sovereignty Day, would remain closed until the weekend, the education ministry said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was “following the developments closely”.

– ‘Nothing we can do’ –
“We all panicked and just ran. There’s absolutely nothing else we can do,” a street seller called Yusuf told AFP.

The tremors could be felt as far away as Bulgaria, according to AFP journalists in the capital Sofia.

Silivri, on the megacity’s western outskirts, has made headlines in the past month as the location where Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was jailed after his arrest in a graft probe that his critics say is politically motivated.

Also there are a number of students detained for joining the mass protests that erupted nationwide over the move against Imamoglu, Erdogan’s biggest political rival.

But no one was hurt, the Parents Solidarity Network said on X.

“The earthquake in Istanbul was most strongly felt in Silivri but our children are fine. There is no problem at the prison,” the group wrote.

Some of the city’s southern districts lie just 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the North Anatolian Fault, which is distinct from the equally active East Anatolian Fault.

Turkey’s cultural and economic capital is home to up to 20 million people, many of whom are still haunted by memories of the last “Big One” that struck part of the city in 1999.

Around 20,000 people were killed in two massive quakes that devastated Turkey’s densely populated northwest — including parts of Istanbul — three months apart in 1999 as the eastern strand of the fault line ruptured.

Seismologists have calculated a 47-percent chance of an earthquake with a magnitude above 7.3 hitting Istanbul within 30 years.

The last tremor to be felt in Istanbul was in mid November, when a quake caused brief panic but no damage or injuries.