Earth sciences

Turkish security forces detained 20 people that have illegally been selling the sand of the world-famous Patara Beach in the Mediterranean province of Antalya on Feb. 27.

The police said the "gang" had smuggled around 3,000 and 5,000 truckloads of beach sand since July last year, selling them to local construction firms.

There are two more beaches in the top European beaches

Turkey is ready to support Croatia on the issue of responding to disasters, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Feb. 26 and pledged to provide help in the reconstruction of earthquake-affected zones.

An earthquake of 4.3 magnitude on the Richter scale shook Croatia again last night. The epicenter was 20 km northwest of Dubrovnik and at a depth of two kilometers, Index news site reported. The quake was felt in southern Dalmatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.9 on the Richter scale was registered today at 4.35 a.m. local time in the Romanian seismic region of Vrancea, BTA reported.

When an aircraft flies at an altitude of 19,000 feet and are 10 miles from a ship at sea level, this activity alone cannot be considered as harassment

Greece will be hit by a low pressure system, named Medea by the Athens Astronomical Observatory, which is expected to bring snowfall, even at low altitudes, from the central region of Thessaly southward.

The United Kingdom on Thursday recorded its coldest February night across the country since February 1955, reported the UK Met office.

A magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck Turkey's Black Sea province of Kastamonu early on Feb. 12, the country's disaster agency said.

The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said on its website that the quake occurred at 6.37 a.m. local time (0337GMT) at a depth of around seven kilometers (4.34 miles).

No casualties have been reported so far.

The number of sinkholes has risen substantially in a year due to the excessive use of groundwater for irrigation purposes in the Konya Plain in the central Turkish province, which is known as the "grain silo" of Turkey due to its vast wheat fields.