- Two Reported Dead in Magnitude-6.7 Quake Near Turkey, Greece
Six teenage members of the Burundi robotics team were reported missing after competing in an international competition this week in Washington.
Police tweeted missing person fliers Wednesday asking for help finding the teens last seen in the area of the FIRST Global Challenge around the time of Tuesday’s final matches. The missing team members include two 17-year-old girls and four males ranging in age from 16 to 18.
Two of the six teens, Audrey Mwamikazi, 17, and Don Ingabire, 16, were seen crossing the border from the U.S. into Canada, police said Thursday. But no additional details were released.
The competition, designed to encourage youths to pursue careers in math and science, attracted teams of teenagers from more than 150 nations. A squad of girls from Afghanistan drew the most attention after they were twice rejected for U.S. visas and President Donald Trump intervened.
Competition organizers learned Tuesday night that the team’s mentor couldn’t find the six students who participated in the competition and organization President FIRST Global President Joe Sestak made the initial call to the police, according to a FIRST Global Challenge statement.
“Security of the students is of paramount importance to FIRST Global,” organizers said, noting that they ensure students get to their dormitories after the competition by providing safe transportation to students staying at Trinity Washington University. The students “are always to be under close supervision of their adult mentor and are advised not to leave the premises unaccompanied by the mentor.”
In the meantime, two people were reportedly killed in a building collapse on the Greek island of Kos after a magnitude-6.7 earthquake struck southeast of the Turkish port city of Bodrum early Friday local time, the U.S. Geological Survey and officials said.
More than 100 people were injured in the earthquake which struck about 6.2 miles south-southeast of Bodrum, northwest of Kos, at 1:31 a.m. (6:31 p.m. Thursday ET), according to Greek officials and the USGS.
Most of the damage was on Kos, which is southwest of Turkey’s southeastern coast, Greek officials said according to the Associated Press. Greece’s deputy minister of shipping and island policy said on state TV that most of the injuries are believed to be minor. The temblor caused people in Kos and in Turkey to flee buildings and prompted a warning to avoid beaches.
“I saw everything shake. We really felt it. Everyone is in fear and out on the street,” Elif Bereketli, 30, a journalist who was in Aydin province in Turkey — which neighbors Mugla province, where Bodrum is located — told NBC News in a phone interview. “We left the house after multiple aftershocks. There are probably more than a hundred people around me.” Bereketli planned to spend the night outside rather than risk returning to the building.
Greek radio reported that two people were killed on the Greek island of Kos after a bar in an old building collapsed. The mayor of Kos confirmed the deaths to Reuters and said several other people were injured in the collapse.
The Turkish Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said the earthquake registered magnitude 6.3 on its scale.
A USGS seismologist said that people would have felt strong shaking and that items likely would have been knocked off walls. Videos posted to Twitter showed people fleeing buildings into the darkened streets, bricks knocked off building exteriors and people huddling under desks.
Sedat Zincirkiran, 62, was on a sailboat about 17 nautical miles from the reported epicenter when the earthquake struck.
“I felt a big kick on the boat from the depths. We ran to deck to see what was happening. It was really severe. It lasted about 30 seconds, and aftershocks keep happening,” Zincirkiran told NBC News by phone. “One is happening as I’m speaking to you.”
Greece and Turkey lie in an especially earthquake-prone zone. Bodrum, in Muğla Province, is in southwestern Turkey. The quake occurred about 10 miles east-northeast of the Greek island of Kos. Guests at a hotel in Kos said the building was evacuated.
Mugla Mayor Osman Gurun said that power was out in certain parts of the province and that telephone operators experienced shortages because of overloads, according to Reuters. Bodrum Mayor Mehmet Kocadon said the earthquake caused minor cracks on some old buildings.
Smaller quakes of 4.4 and 4.7 magnitude were recorded near Kos in the hour after the larger earthquake, the USGS said.
The independent European quake agency EMSC warned people in Bodrum and Kos to avoid beaches. A sea-level monitoring station in Bodrum reported that the sea level rose by about seven-eighths of a centimeter after the quake.
Officials told Turkish broadcasters that large waves were more likely rather than a tsunami, Reuters reported
NBC
