ISTANBUL (AP) — An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 shook Istanbul and other areas on Wednesday, Turkey’s disaster and emergency management agency said. There were no immediate reports of serious damage in the metropolis of 16 million.

More than 150 people were hospitalized with injuries sustained while attempting to flee buildings, the Istanbul governor’s office said.

The earthquake had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey, with its epicenter about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara.

It was felt in the neighboring provinces of Tekirdag, Yalova, Bursa and Balikesir and in the city of Izmir, some 550 kilometers south of Istanbul. There were several aftershocks, including one measuring 5.3.

The incident, which started at 12:49 p.m. during a public holiday when many children were out of school and celebrating in the streets, caused widespread panic in Istanbul, which is on tenterhooks due to the looming threat of a major earthquake. Panicked residents rushed from their homes and buildings into the streets. The disaster and emergency management agency urged people to stay away from buildings.

“Due to panic, 151 of our citizens were injured from jumping from heights,” the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement. “Their treatments are ongoing in hospitals, and they are not in life-threatening condition.”

Many residents flocked to parks, school yards and other open areas to avoid being near buildings in case of collapse or subsequent earthquakes. Some people pitched tents in parks.

“Thank God, there does not seem to be any problems for now,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at an event marking the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day holiday. “May God protect our country and our people from all kinds of calamities, disasters, accidents and troubles.”

Leyla Ucar, a personal trainer, said she was exercising with her student on the 20th floor of a building when they felt intense shaking.

“We shook incredibly. It threw us around, we couldn’t understand what was happening, we didn’t think of an earthquake at first because of the shock of the event,” she said. “It was very scary.”

Senol Sari, a 51-year-old resident who fled to a park nearby his house, told The Associated Press he was with his children in the living room of his flat on the third floor of an apartment building when he heard a loud noise and the building started shaking.

“We immediately protected ourselves from the earthquake and waited for it to pass, then calmly walked away from the house,” Sari said. “Of course, we were scared during the earthquake. We were worried that it would continue. Since the (great) Istanbul earthquake is (still) an expected earthquake, our concerns continue.”

Cihan Boztepe, 40, was one of those who hurriedly fled to the streets with his family in order to avoid a potential collapse. Boztepe, standing next to his sobbing child, told AP that he was living in Batman province, an area close to the southern part of Turkey where the 2023 quakes hit, and that Wednesday’s tremor felt weaker and that he wasn’t as scared.

“At first we were shaken, then it stopped, then we were shaken again. My children were a little scared, but I wasn’t. We quickly gathered our things and went down to a safe place. If it were up to me, we would have already returned home.”

Turkey’s interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, said the authorities had not received reports of collapsed buildings. He told HaberTurk television that there had been reports of damage to buildings.

The NTV broadcaster reported that a derelict and abandoned former residential building in this historic Fatih district, which houses the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, had collapsed.

Kemal Cebi, the mayor of Kucukcekmece district in western Istanbul, told NTV there were “no negative developments yet,” but reported traffic jams, and said many buildings were already at risk due to the area’s density.

In Zeytinburnu district, some people were injured after jumping out of buildings, mayor Omer Arisoy told NTV.

Turkey is crossed by two major fault lines, and earthquakes are frequent.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023, and a second powerful tremor hours later, destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings in 11 southern and southeastern provinces, leaving more than 53,000 people dead. Another 6,000 people were killed in the northern parts of neighboring Syria.

Istanbul was not impacted by that earthquake, but the devastation heightened fears of a similar quake, with experts citing the city’s proximity to fault lines.

In a bid to prevent damage from any future quake, the national government and local administrations started urban reconstruction projects to fortify buildings at risk and launched campaigns to demolish buildings at risk of collapse.

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Robert Badendieck contributed from Canakkale, Turkey.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Protests erupted across multiple Turkish cities on Friday as people rallied against the arrest of Istanbul’s mayor and top rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, despite the Turkish leader’s stern warning that street protests would not be tolerated.

In Istanbul, police used pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets to push back hundreds of protesters who tried to break through a barricade in front of the city’s historic aqueduct and threw flares, stones and other objects at them.

Police also broke up demonstrations in Ankara, the capital, as well as in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, resorting to forceful measures at times, according to images shown on the private Halk TV. Thousands marched in several other cities calling on the government to resign, the station reported.

At least 97 people were detained nationwide during the protests, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.

Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested in a dawn raid on his residence on Wednesday over alleged corruption and terror links, escalating a crackdown on opposition figures and dissenting voices. Several other prominent figures, including two district mayors, were also detained.

Many view the arrest as a politically driven attempt to remove a popular opposition figure and key challenger to Erdogan in the next presidential race, currently scheduled for 2028. Government officials reject accusations that legal actions against opposition figures are politically motivated and insist that Turkey’s courts operate independently.

Imamoglu was questioned by police for four hours over corruption accusations, during which he denied all the charges, the Cumhuriyet newspaper and other media reported. He was expected to be transferred to a courthouse Saturday evening for questioning by prosecutors.

His arrest has sparked the largest protests since 2013, when Turkey was rocked by mass anti-government demonstrations that left eight people dead.

Earlier on Friday, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, Ozgur Ozel, renewed a call on supporters to take to the streets for peaceful demonstrations, while authorities widened a ban on protests and criticized the appeal as irresponsible.

“I invite tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions, to peacefully demonstrate, express our democratic reaction, and exercise our constitutional rights,” he said.

Addressing a large rally outside the city hall, Ozel accused Erdogan of using the judiciary as tool after failing to defeat the mayor “in a fair way.”

Erdogan, increasingly authoritarian after more than two decades in office, said the government would not tolerate street protests and accused the opposition party of links to corruption and terror organizations.

“An anti-corruption operation in Istanbul is being used as an excuse to stir unrest in our streets. I want it to be known that we will not allow a handful of opportunists to bring unrest to Turkey just to protect their plundering schemes,” Erdogan said.

“Pointing to the streets instead of courtrooms to defend theft, plunder, lawlessness and fraud is a grave irresponsibility,” Erdogan said. “Just as we have not surrendered to street terrorism until now, we will not bow to vandalism in the future either.”

On Friday, authorities in Ankara and Izmir announced a five-day ban on demonstrations, following a similar measure imposed earlier in Istanbul. Authorities on Friday announced more road closures in Istanbul and shuttered metro stops near a university in Ankara, where violent clashes occurred a day earlier.

Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in a primary on Sunday. Ozel has said that the primary, where around 1.5 million delegates can vote, will go ahead as planned.

The opposition party has also urged citizens to participate in a symbolic election on Sunday — through improvised ballot boxes to be set up across Turkey — to show solidarity with Imamoglu.

Analysts say Imamoglu could be removed from office and replaced by a “trustee mayor,” if he is formally charged with links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.

Meanwhile, Ozel also said the opposition party would hold an extraordinary party congress on April 6, to thwart any attempts by the authorities to appoint a “trustee chairman” to lead the party. The decision came amid speculation that authorities could annul the party’s last congress, held in 2023, over alleged vote-buying and other irregularities, and appoint a handpicked leader.

Also Friday, gunmen opened fire on the Iraqi consulate in Istanbul, the Turkish and Iraqi foreign ministries said. No injuries were reported.

Iraq’s foreign ministry said in a statement that unknown assailants riding on a motorcycle and armed with an assault rifle, fired eight shots at the building before fleeing.

The Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement that “the necessary investigation is being carried out meticulously by our security units” and “those responsible will be brought to justice.” It said that measures had been taken to secure Iraqi diplomatic missions in Ankara, Istanbul and Gaziantep.

It was not clear what may have motivated the shooting.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish authorities detained 37 people for sharing “provocative” content on social media, the interior minister said Thursday, pressing ahead with a crackdown on dissenting voices that escalated with the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, a potential challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested after a dawn raid on his residence on Wednesday as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links. Several other prominent figures, including two district mayors, were also detained.

The detention of a popular opposition leader and key Erdogan rival deepened concerns over democracy and sparked protests in Istanbul and elsewhere, despite a four-day ban on demonstrations in the city and road closures. Several people were detained following a student protest in the capital, Ankara, that continued into the night.

It also caused a shockwave in the financial market, triggering temporary halts in trading to prevent panic selling.

Critics see the crackdown as an effort by Erdogan to extend his more then two-decade rule following significant losses by the ruling party in local elections last year. Government officials reject claims that legal actions against opposition figures are politically motivated and insist that the courts operate independently.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities identified 261 social media accounts that shared provocative posts inciting public hatred or crime, including 62 that are run by people based abroad. At least 37 of the suspected owners were detained in a operation police and cyber crime teams, he wrote on the X social media platform. Efforts to detain other suspects were continuing, he said.

Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in a primary scheduled for Sunday. The party’s leader has said the primary will go ahead as planned.

Prosecutors accused Imamoglu of exploiting his position for financial gain, including the improper allocation of government contracts.

In a separate investigation, prosecutors also accuse Imamoglu of aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, by allegedly forming an alliance with a Kurdish umbrella organization for the Istanbul municipal elections. The PKK, behind a decades-long insurgency in Turkey, is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and other allies.

It was not clear when authorities would begin questioning the mayor, who can be detained without charges for up to four days. Analysts say Imamoglu could be removed from office and replaced by a “trustee mayor” if he is formally charged with links to the PKK.

Before his detention, Imamoglu already faced multiple criminal cases that could result in prison sentences and a political ban. He is also appealing a 2022 conviction for insulting members of Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council, a case that could result in a political ban.

This week, a university nullified his diploma, citing alleged irregularities in his 1990 transfer from a private university in northern Cyprus to its business faculty, a decision Imamoglu said he would challenge. The decision effectively bars him from running for president, since the position requires candidates to be university graduates.

Imamoglu was elected mayor of Turkey’s largest city in March 2019, a historic blow to Erdogan and the president’s Justice and Development Party, which had controlled Istanbul for a quarter-century. Erdogan’s party pushed to void the municipal election results in the city of 16 million, alleging irregularities.

The challenge resulted in a repeat of the election a few months later, which Imamoglu also won. The mayor retained his seat following local elections last year, during which his party made significant gains against Erdogan’s governing party.

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.