The death toll from the earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey on February 6 has risen to 42,310, the Turkish Disaster Management Agency (Afad) announced on Wednesday.
Efforts to search for survivors have been suspended in all provinces except Hatay, which was hit by another earthquake on Monday, the same source said.
According to AFAD, 7,184 followingshocks have been recorded since the double earthquake of February 6.
And to add that the priority of the teams on the ground is to remove the rubble of the collapsed buildings and to redouble their efforts to establish temporary shelters in the most affected areas.
Nearly 13,000 excavators, cranes, trucks and other construction vehicles have been sent to the earthquake zone, while the first “container cities” and temporary shelters are being built in the regions of “Nordag” and “Islahiye” in the localities of “Gaziantep” and “Osmaniye”.
On February 6, a violent earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 on the Richter scale shook the district of Pazarcık in Kahramanmaraş, causing enormous damage in the localities of “Gaziantep”, “Adana”, “Malatya “, “Diyarbakir”, “Sanliurfa” and “Osmaniye”, in addition to the epicentre.
A few hours following 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.
Monday evening, two earthquakes measuring 6.4 and 5.8 on the Richter scale shook the province of Hatay, killing six people and injuring 294.
