A huge fire that spread to dozens of containers continued to burn Tuesday evening for the second day in a row in the Turkish port of İskenderun, in southern Turkey and near the Syrian border, following the violent earthquake of Monday.
Images broadcast by Turkish television show a huge column of black, oily and thick smoke flying above the colored containers, stowed on a quay in this Mediterranean port.
The disaster started late Monday afternoon and has been raging ever since: it apparently started when one of the containers overturned on the others under the effect of one of the many aftershocks of the initial earthquake, d a magnitude of 7.8.
Many attempts have been made since to extinguish the flames, and Istanbul firefighters even came to the rescue, announced the mayor of the economic capital of the country, Ekrem Imamoğlu.
The Turkish authorities also dispatched a coastguard vessel equipped with spears. But the flames continue to feed the black plume, which creates risks of pollution.
In a statement, Sealand, a branch of the Danish shipping company Maersk, said on Tuesday that “the earthquake caused significant damage to logistics and transport infrastructure in the Pazarcık district of Kahramanmaraş, the epicenter of the earthquake. land, including in the port of İskenderun”, attached to the neighboring province of Hatay.
Sealand says it is suspending all operations from that port.
The province of Hatay, on the Syrian border, is one of the areas most affected by the earthquake which killed more than 7,000 people in the two countries on Tuesday evening.