18 Feb. () –
The Turkish authorities have raised to about 40,000 deaths from the earthquakes registered on February 6 in the south of the country, near the border with Syria, a country in which around 4,000 people have died, according to official data. .
The Turkish Interior Minister, Suleyman Soylu, has detailed that to date 39,672 deaths have been confirmed in the ten provinces affected by the earthquakes, which have also left more than thirteen million homeless.
Thus, he has reiterated that the priority continues to be the search and rescue efforts, although the time that has passed since the earthquakes is reducing the chances of continuing to find survivors among the rubble of the thousands of buildings collapsed by the tremors.
Soylu stressed that more than 264,000 workers are deployed on the ground, including search and rescue services, health workers, and agents, before noting that there are planes, helicopters, and ships assigned to deliver aid.
For his part, the Turkish Defense Minister, Hulusi Akar, stressed that at this time we must appeal “to unity and solidarity”. “We will do everything possible to heal these wounds,” he explained, as reported by the Turkish state news agency, Anatolia.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay has also denied that the search and rescue efforts have stopped and has detailed that more than 374,000 people have already been evacuated from the affected regions, including nearly 1,600 unaccompanied children. However, he praised that more than 950 “have already been reunited with their families.”
To the balance of deaths in Turkey must be added 1,414 people killed in areas of Syria controlled by the Government and 2,274 deaths in areas in the hands of the rebels, according to data from the Syrian Civil Defense, known as ‘white helmets’.
The regional director of emergencies for the World Health Organization (WHO), Rick Brennan, said last week from Damascus that the agency estimates that at least 9,300 would have died in Syria — some 4,800 in areas controlled by the authorities and 4,500 in areas in rebel hands–, although he qualified that right now there is no way to make an adjusted projection.
