A powerful series of aftershocks shook the region on March 5, 2023, only days after a devastating major earthquake, toppling buildings that had already been weakened by the initial tremor and sending tens of thousands of residents into the streets in the middle of the night. The renewed shaking has heightened fears across affected communities, interrupted the first fragile steps of recovery, and forced emergency services — already stretched by the main event — into a renewed round of search, rescue, and structural response.

Seismologists confirmed that a sequence of aftershocks, the strongest measuring magnitude 6.3, struck in rapid succession over a span of roughly three hours, shaking a wide area that had already endured catastrophic damage from the initial earthquake earlier in the week. While smaller aftershocks had been recorded continuously since the main event, the intensity and frequency of those that struck on March 5 marked the most significant seismic activity the region had experienced since the main tremor itself.

The Night of Renewed Shaking

The strongest aftershock struck shortly after 2:00 a.m. local time, when much of the already displaced population was sleeping in tents, cars, makeshift shelters, or the homes of relatives. Accounts from across the affected region describe a violent burst of shaking that lasted up to fifteen seconds, accompanied by a deep, audible rumble that many residents said was unmistakably different from the hundreds of smaller aftershocks they had felt over the preceding days.

"This one was different from the start," said a resident who had been sheltering with her family in a school playground serving as an evacuation site. "It felt like the whole earth was being pushed sideways again. People started screaming before the shaking even stopped. Everyone knew, immediately, that something bad had just happened somewhere."

Within minutes, the sky above the worst-affected districts was filled with dust and the sound of sirens as emergency services responded to new reports of structural collapse. Buildings that had cracked or partially collapsed during the main earthquake, and which had been cordoned off but not yet demolished, came down entirely during the strongest aftershocks. Several ongoing rescue operations were suspended temporarily as responders were pulled back from unstable sites.

Compounded Damage

The damage inflicted by the aftershocks is in many ways harder to quantify than the damage from a single main event, because much of the collapse took place in structures that were already compromised. Engineers who had begun preliminary assessments of damaged buildings in the days after the initial earthquake found themselves returning to sites where their earlier work had been rendered academic by a fresh round of destruction.

Dozens of buildings across the region, including residential blocks, commercial structures, and at least one partially collapsed hospital wing, came down in the hours after the strongest aftershock. Emergency crews worked through the rest of the night to search the new debris for possible victims — some of whom may have been residents who, against official advice, had returned to damaged homes to retrieve possessions, and others responders who had been working at those sites when the aftershocks struck.

The toll remains provisional. As of the end of the day, regional authorities had confirmed additional fatalities and a significant rise in the number of injured, but cautioned that final figures would take time to establish given the scale of continued search operations and the difficulty of reaching every location.

Fear on the Streets

Beyond the physical damage, the aftershocks have exacted a heavy psychological cost. Communities that had begun, in the days immediately after the main earthquake, to speak cautiously of rebuilding have been pushed back into a mode of pure survival. Streets in city centres filled overnight with families who refused to return to any enclosed space until seismic activity subsided.

Makeshift encampments that had formed outside hospitals, places of worship, and public parks have grown significantly. Field clinics, already operating at high intensity, reported a renewed surge of patients presenting with panic attacks, stress-related symptoms, and minor injuries sustained during hurried overnight evacuations. Community and religious leaders moved among the gathered residents through the small hours of the morning, offering practical support and attempting to reassure a population whose nerves had been ground down by days of relentless aftershocks.

"Every time the ground moves, even a little, people run," explained a volunteer coordinating one of the open-air shelters. "You can see it in their eyes. This is no longer just about what happened on the day of the main earthquake. It's about the fact that it has not stopped happening, and nobody can tell them when it will."

Rescue and Medical Response Under Pressure

Search-and-rescue teams working at existing collapse sites had to navigate a complicated balance through the night. Ongoing operations at sites where survivors had been reached were, in some cases, temporarily suspended as the aftershocks put responders and any remaining trapped individuals at heightened risk. New collapses, meanwhile, created fresh emergency sites that required immediate triage and deployment of specialist units.

Medical facilities across the region, already running on surge protocols, extended their mass-casualty response. Several hospitals activated contingency plans to move patients out of upper floors, where the risk from further aftershocks was considered highest, and to consolidate critical care in ground-floor and purpose-built field facilities. International search-and-rescue and medical teams that had deployed to the region in the wake of the main earthquake were redeployed to new sites and in some cases had their missions extended.

A Warning From the Ground

Seismologists described the aftershock sequence as significant but, in pattern and magnitude, broadly consistent with what is expected in the days and weeks following a major earthquake of this type. Events of this magnitude typically trigger aftershocks that can be felt for months, with the largest aftershocks commonly occurring in the first days to weeks after the main event.

"What we saw today is not a new earthquake in the sense of an independent event, but it is a major event in its own right," a senior seismologist explained at a televised afternoon briefing. "Residents, responders, and authorities need to treat it as such. The decline in aftershock activity is a probability, not a guarantee, and the safety of damaged structures has to be assessed against the real possibility of further strong shaking."

Official guidance was reinforced in the hours after the aftershocks: residents of damaged buildings should not return to those buildings; assessed-unsafe structures must be treated as unsafe, even if they still appear to be standing; and those living in undamaged homes should continue to prepare for the possibility of further strong aftershocks by securing heavy furniture, preparing emergency supplies, and identifying safe spaces indoors and outdoors.

The Longer Road Ahead

The events of March 5 will, in the collective memory of the affected region, likely be remembered alongside the main earthquake rather than as a separate event. For survivors who had begun to imagine a tentative return to something resembling normal life, the renewed shaking has reset the clock on grief and fear, and has extended the active phase of emergency response by an indeterminate further period.

National authorities moved quickly to reassure affected communities that disaster response funding would be extended and adjusted as required, and that international assistance — already arriving in significant volume — would be expanded in coordination with partner agencies. Plans announced in the days after the main earthquake for temporary housing, psychosocial support, and infrastructure repair were reviewed and, in several areas, expanded in response to the additional damage.

In the hours after the worst of the aftershocks subsided, as the dust settled in streets that had been shaken twice in a week, the region was left once again to confront the fundamental question posed by any major seismic disaster: how to live, how to rebuild, and how to recover in a place where the ground itself cannot be relied upon. The answers, as always, will be written over months and years of patient work — work that, for the communities of the affected region, is now that much harder, and that much more necessary.