People bury their loved ones in the Turkish city of Adiyaman, which was hit by an earthquake on Monday, February 10, 2023.
Ankara/Damascus – Turkey has already recorded 20,665 dead after Monday's strong earthquake. Referring to the Turkish Agency for Disaster and Emergency Management (AFAD), Reuters reports about this. In neighboring Syria, the government and the opposition, which control parts of the divided country, reported a total of 3,553 deaths on Friday, bringing the total death toll from the disaster to over 24,000.
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Photo gallery: Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
Turkish authorities recorded around 450 more deaths overnight. AFAD added that almost 93,000 people have been evacuated from the affected zone in the south of Turkey and that over 166,000 workers are involved in crisis operations. A team of Czech rescuers is also working in the area, who rescued two survivors from the rubble of collapsed houses in the city of Adiyaman on Friday morning.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake and hundreds of aftershocks mainly affected the south of Turkey, but they were also felt northwest Syria. Rescuers are still searching through the wreckage of homes, while the chances of finding survivors are decreasing, even given the low temperatures at night.
In Syria, search and humanitarian operations are complicated by the complex domestic political and security situation. Access to regions under the control of insurgent groups is particularly difficult. Even there, aid in the form of tents and blankets is already on its way, but according to the rescue organization White Helmets, which operates in the areas, it is still completely insufficient. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated on Friday that the earthquake in Syria left up to 5.3 million people homeless.
