Illustration photo – An excavator removes debris from a destroyed building after an earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, February 13, 2023.
Ankara – Turkish authorities have raised the death toll from the earthquake that hit the south of the country and neighboring Syria last Monday to 38,044. This was reported by the Reuters agency, according to which 5,800 deaths are reported from Syria. In total, the authorities and rescue workers in both affected countries already know about almost 44,000 victims.
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Photo gallery: Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
Turkey's tally has risen by another nearly two thousand since Thursday morning, while Syria's numbers have not changed much in recent days. The head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, said at the weekend that the death toll was likely to exceed 50,000.
According to the Turkish media, survivors remained under the rubble even ten days after the first strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8. TRT TV reported on Thursday that after 248 hours since the earthquake, rescue workers in Kahramanmaraş province freed a 17-year-old girl. In the evening, information came from the same region about the rescue of a forty-two-year-old woman who spent 257 hours under the rubble, according to Anadolu Agency.
However, according to Reuters, such cases are becoming increasingly rare and with dying hope, they say, “smoldering anger”. The earthquake left millions of people homeless in the two countries, many of whom are now sleeping in tents, mosques, schools or cars. International aid is flowing into the affected regions, which the UN is trying to step up. First, it announced a fundraiser with a target amount of 400 million dollars (almost nine billion CZK) to help people in Syria, then on Thursday it published a call for a billion dollars to Turkey.
Meanwhile, foreign rescue teams are ending operations in Turkey. countries headed last week. Czech rescuers are returning to their homeland today after freeing 78 dead and two alive people from the rubble.
