ANKARA, March 29: Hundreds of people in northern Turkey took shelter in camps on Wednesday following rumours that a major quake would hit the region after Wednesday’s total solar eclipse.

Seismologists flocked to the town of Niksar, in Tokat province, to debunk the rumours and calm the population, but many are determined to stay outdoors, Niksar’s deputy mayor Abdullah Yildiz said.

An obscure academic sparked the panic earlier this month when he wrote a letter to local authorities, warning that the March 29 eclipse would be followed by an earthquake measuring up to 7.2 on the Richter scale with its epicentre in Niksar.

The town, situated on a major seismological faultline, was virtually razed in a powerful tremor in 1939.

“Several small villages near Niksar lying on the faultline are 80 per cent empty,” Mr Yildiz said, adding that the villagers had either moved to traditional summer huts in the mountains or were camping in tents outside their homes.

In Aug 1999, a solar eclipse preceded a massive quake, which was itself followed by another big tremor in November. Some 20,000 people were killed.

Some of Turkey’s leading seismologists converged in Niksar on Tuesday to calm residents, ruling out the possibility of any major tremor in the area in the short term and any scientific link between eclipses and quakes.

But for Mustafa Hasta, an elderly man in the Yolkonak village, the assurances of scientists were of little solace.

“We will continue to live in tents for two more months after the eclipse,” he told Anatolia news agency from a tent he shares with six relatives.

“Everything is the will of Allah, but we have still taken all the necessary measures,” he said, explaining they had even tied his eight-month-old grandson inside his cradle. “We hope there will be no earthquake.”—AFP