The search for survivors after the Feb. 6 earthquake has been completed across Turkey except for a few points in two provinces, Hatay and Kahramanmaras, Yunus Sezer, president of Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency, said on Sunday. These two provinces were the hardest hit by the 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes on the 6th, and they are also the areas where rescue teams arrived with the longest delays. “Every day we continue our work in the hope of finding one of our brothers alive,” Sezer said. But the truth is there hasn’t been a new rescue of survivors since Saturday afternoon.
Turkey’s official death toll stands at 40,689 – to be added to the 5,800 reported in Syria – and more than 21,000 wounded remain hospitalized, Sezer said. However, it is understood that the numbers could be higher. Firstly, because no estimate has been published of how many people are still under the rubble or missing. And also because a government MP, Osman Bilgin, at a meeting with those affected on Sunday, admitted that they could even quintuple: “The situation is much worse than what you saw, than you know. The numbers are three or four times what has been published, maybe even five times worse.” Hatay Mayor Lütfü Savas confirmed that in his province alone – one of the ten affected – there were 21,000 dead and that more than 3,000 buildings had collapsed.
According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Urban Planning, almost 831,000 buildings have already been inspected, of which more than 105,000 were destroyed by the earthquake or have to be demolished due to significant structural damage. In total, more than 384,000 houses were destroyed or more than 1.5 million people were made homeless. Camps were set up for them and their evacuation promoted: by Sunday, the AFAD had transported more than 450,000 victims from the affected region to other provinces in the country, not counting those leaving.
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