A major earthquake that rocked southeastern Türkiye early Monday inflicted severe damage to the country’s energy infrastructure, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez said.
The powerful 7.7 magnitude quake caused serious damage to the infrastructure, particularly in the Kahramanmaraş province, considered the epicenter of the quake, Dönmez told reporters.
Separately, officials said two critical oil pipelines and a nuclear power plant, currently under construction, were undamaged.
The quake toppled hundreds of buildings and killed at least 912 people, officials said. Hundreds were still believed to be trapped under rubble, and the toll was expected to rise as rescue workers searched mounds of wreckage in cities and towns across the area.
Damage has been inflicted on electricity and natural gas transmission and distribution lines, Dönmez said.
He confirmed that a rupture in the natural gas main transmission line in the Türkoğlu district of Kahramanmaras, close to the epicenter, was one of the most damaged infrastructures.
“This is our main transmission line that carries natural gas to Gaziantep, Hatay and Kilis, especially to Kahramanmaras. As of now, outages may occur in these provinces,” Dönmez said.
Teams are working on repairing the damaged lines, he said, adding that approximately 30 substations belonging to Türkiye’s Electricity Transmission Corporation (TEIAŞ) suffered varying degrees of damage.
“We dispatched our mobile power plants to the region. In particular, we will try to supply natural gas and energy in facilities such as hospitals, soup kitchens and bakeries, both by compressed natural gas (CNG) transportation method and mobile generators,” Dönmez said.
There has been no damage to the Kerkuk-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from Iraq to Türkiye, or to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and oil flows are continuing on both, an energy official told Reuters.
However, operations at the Ceyhan oil terminal in the southern province of Adana were suspended, the Tribeca shipping agency said, adding that an emergency meeting was being held on the issue.
The eastern Mediterranean terminal is some 155 km (96 miles) from the area of the quake’s epicenter.
Earlier, state pipeline operator BOTAŞ said natural gas flows were halted to Gaziantep, Hatay and Kahramanmaraş provinces and some other districts as a result of damage to a gas transmission line.
BOTAŞ said there were no damages to the main pipelines.
In a notice, Tribeca said ports in southeastern Türkiye were affected by the quake and that delays in operations are reported.
Türkiye’s maritime authority said the Iskenderun port located in the southern province of Hatay was damaged due to quake.
The website of the LimakPort Iskenderun International Port was down at around noon.
Following its damage inspections, the authority said on Twitter that operations continue in ports besides Iskenderun.
Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, Türkiye’s first such facility that is currently under construction on the Mediterranean coast, was not damaged, said an official from the Russian company building the plant.
“Earth tremors of about magnitude 3 were felt here… but our specialists have not revealed any damage to building structures, cranes and equipment,” said Anastasia Zoteeva from Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom.
“Nevertheless, we are carrying out extensive diagnostic measures to make sure that construction and installation operations can continue safely,” the RIA news agency quoted her as saying.
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