From 25,000 dead on Saturday, the toll of the strongest earthquake in the region for more than 100 years is approaching this Sunday at 30,000. The unfortunate news is that it should “more than double”, according to the UN emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, quoted by TF1.
The toll of the earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey last Monday rose sharply on Sunday, as nearly 5,000 bodies were recovered from the rubble, bringing the total death toll to nearly 30,000, according to the Turkish Disaster Management Agency (Afad).
The updated report shows more than 29,600 dead and 80,000 injured, said the Turkish Agency, noting that a total of 147,934 citizens have been evacuated from the affected areas so far, noting that 2,412 aftershocks have been recorded since the first day of the earthquake.
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The earthquake, which occurred last Monday at 04:17 local time (01:17 GMT) at a depth of about 17.9 kilometers, caused the collapse of hundreds of buildings in the Turkish localities of “Kahramanmaraş”, “Gaziantep”, “Adana “, “Malatya”, “Diyarbakir”, “Sanliurfa” and “Osmaniye”.
A few hours after this first violent tremor, another earthquake struck north of the city of Gaziantep with almost the same intensity and near the epicenter of the first earthquake, which worsened the toll of the disaster.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared official mourning for a period of seven days (due to end tomorrow) and a state of emergency in the affected areas for three months.
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In neighboring Syria, which also suffered the repercussions of the terrible earthquake, in particular in Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Hama and Tartous, the number of victims rose to more than 4,000 dead and 7,000 injured. However, it is difficult to determine the exact number of victims due to the difficult conditions in which the country has lived for more than a decade.