The number of confirmed deaths in Turkey due to the earthquake rose to 41,000 as of Sunday evening, bringing the total death toll in Turkey and Syria to 44,708, according to the latest official statistics quoted by the Associated Press from the Turkish National Disaster Agency (AFAD).
The head of the Turkish National Agency, Yunus Sezer, told reporters in Ankara on Sunday that search and rescue work had ended in 9 out of 11 provinces listed as earthquake disaster zones.
He added that rescue operations were underway in Kahramanmaras, the site of the quake, and Hatay, which is one of the hardest hit provinces. “We continue these efforts every day in the hope of finding a surviving brother or sister,” Sezer said.
Hatay Mayor Lutvu Savas announced that 21,000 people died in the province as a result of the quake, more than half of the total number of confirmed deaths in Turkey.
“At least 80 percent of the buildings in Antakya must be removed,” Savas told Haber Turk. Antakya is the capital of Hatay and the site of the ancient city of Antioch.
Savaş added that 24,000 people were injured in Hatay, which is located between Syria and the Mediterranean Sea.
As search and rescue efforts for survivors buried under the rubble of the February 6 earthquake neared completion in Turkey, demolition teams moved to remove piles of rubble left by the worst disaster in Turkey’s modern history.
The agency indicated that while rescue operations are currently continuing in the hardest-hit provinces of Kahramanmaras and Hatay, there are no signs indicating that people may be alive under the rubble so far, since Saturday, when three members of one family, a mother, a father and a boy, were recovered. He is 12 years old, from a collapsed building in Hatay, before the boy later dies.
The United Nations said that determining the full number of deaths in Syria may take some time, according to the “Associated Press”.
And the “Associated Press” quoted the disaster management in Turkey as saying that about 6,040 aftershocks hit 11 provinces that constitute the disaster area declared by the government in the days following the initial earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale, and was followed 9 hours later by a tremor of a magnitude of 7.5, while the Another 40 aftershocks had a magnitude of 5 to 6, with one recorded at 6.6.
In a televised news conference in Ankara, the agency’s director general, Orhan Tatar, said, “It is very important to stay away from damaged buildings and not enter them.” He also warned of “minor disasters” such as landslides and rockslides.
The Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanization said, on Sunday, that the inspections found 105,794 buildings that were either destroyed or subject to severe damage that required demolition, according to the Associated Press.
The agency stated that these figures are for Turkey and did not include the collapsed and damaged buildings in Syria.