TURKEY EARTHQUAKE RESCUE OPERATIONS TO END: GOVERNMENT

Sun 19 February 2023:

About two weeks after this month’s deadly earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Administration (AFAD) says that search and rescue activities have come to an end in the majority of regions.

“The death toll due to the earthquakes rose to 40,642, and the work of searching and rescue for people stuck under the debris has ended in most of the provinces,” Yunis Sezar, head of AFAD, said in a presser on Saturday.

“We believe we will end the search and rescue operations by tomorrow night,” he added.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey’s southeast and neighbouring Syria on February 6, killing more than 45,000 people and leaving more than a million people homeless along with an economic cost expected to run into billions of dollars.

“We are in front of perhaps the biggest disaster we have faced in history. The damage from the earthquakes and the aftershocks – that were more than 5,700 – were not only restricted to the affected 11 provinces,” Sezar said.

In Syria, more than 5,800 deaths have been reported, mostly in the northwest. The figure has not changed for several days.

The World Health Organization estimates that some 26 million people across both Turkey and Syria need humanitarian aid.

The damage is immense on both sides of the border and health officials are concerned about the possible spread of infection as a result of damage to sanitation infrastructure and lack of clean water in many stricken communities.

Before and after images of the once-busy streets of quake-hit Hatay province in southern Türkiye show the extent of the destruction.#TurkeyEarthquake #hatayantakya pic.twitter.com/OTsAriKgtE

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) February 18, 2023

Northwestern Syria had a wait of three long days after the earthquake struck before aid convoys were able to navigate damaged Turkish roads and pass through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, which was the only UN-approved land crossing into this opposition-controlled region where a number of armed groups at war with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are active.

Since then, the UN has apologised for the delay and begun using two other land crossings from Turkey into northern Syria.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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