The number of deaths caused by the earthquakes registered on Monday in southern Turkey, near the border with Syria, exceeded 11,000, according to official balances published until this Wednesday, while more than 57,000 people were injured. because of the earthquakes, for which it is feared that the figures of death will continue to rise.
The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (Afad), under the Turkish Interior Ministry, said in a statement that so far the deaths of 9,057 people have been confirmed in 11 provinces: Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Adana, Adiyaman, Osmaniye, Hatay, Kilis, Malatya and Elazig, while estimating the total number of wounded at 52,000.
He also specified that “following the first earthquake, another 648 were registered, the largest being a magnitude 7.6 with an epicenter in Elbistan”, before confirming that more than 96,600 agents, workers from non-profit organizations, are deployed in the affected areas. government agencies, search and rescue teams, and volunteers. In this context of disaster, Turkey also created an air bridge for the transfer of personnel and materials from Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
The Government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan also created a Crisis Management Center in the Ministry of Defense to deal with the catastrophe, in order to transport personnel and the rescue team through an air aid bridge.
Erdogan himself will travel to the area during the day to supervise the search and rescue work, according to the Turkish Communications Directorate.
The Turkish president declared this Wednesday a state of emergency for three months in the provinces affected by the earthquakes. “We are facing one of the biggest disasters not only in the history of the Republic, but also of the region and the world,” he said.
add up and continue
The quake has also so far left 1,250 dead and 2,054 injured in areas of Syria controlled by the authorities, according to data from the Syrian Ministry of Health published on its Facebook profile. These data correspond to the provinces of Aleppo, Hama, Latakia, Tartus and the areas of Idlib in the hands of government forces.
To the Syrian government figures we must add more than 2,662 dead and 5,000 wounded in the areas controlled by the rebels in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo (northwest), according to the Syrian Civil Defense, known as ‘white helmets’, through from your Twitter account.
He has also insisted that “the balance is expected to increase significantly, since hundreds of families remain trapped under the rubble more than 50 hours following the earthquake.”
Finally, he pointed out that more than 360 buildings were completely destroyed, while another thousand are “severely destroyed.”
Challenge
The catastrophe also caused a trail of destruction and death in northern Syria, where getting humanitarian aid and vital rescue teams in the hours following the tremors is challenging.
On the one hand, Bashar al-Assad’s regime managed to regain control of a large part of the country almost 12 years following the president repressed with blood and fire the protests demanding more democracy during the Arab Spring.
However, Western countries refuse to channel humanitarian assistance through the Syrian government, as Damascus claims, deriving any aid to the most vulnerable population through UN agencies or NGOs present on the ground.
On the other hand, the northwest -essentially the province of Idlib and some areas of Aleppo- is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), a terrorist organization inheriting from the Nusra Front that was once an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Syria, and which In recent years, he has made an effort to present himself as an alternative government in this part of the country.
In addition, the area in which that border crossing is located was damaged by the earthquakes. According to the UN Agency for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), local sources indicated that cross-border operations are being temporarily disrupted by problems on the roads in the area.
