Anadolu Agency/Sabah - February 9, 2023
Death toll in Türkiye from earthquakes surpasses 12,000
Servet Günerigök
The number of people who died in powerful earthquakes in southern Türkiye has surpassed 12,000, a government agency said early Thursday.
Türkiye's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, AFAD, said 12,391 people were killed and 62,914 others were injured in Monday’s quakes centered in Kahramanmaras province.
Other provinces in southern and eastern Türkiye that were affected by the quakes are Gaziantep, Hatay, Osmaniye, Adiyaman, Malatya, Sanliurfa, Adana, Diyarbakir and Kilis.
More than 6,000 buildings collapsed due to the 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude quakes that occurred in the space of less than 10 hours.
More than 13 million people have been impacted by the quakes.
For search and rescue operations to be carried out rapidly, Türkiye on Tuesday announced a three-month state of emergency in the quake-hit provinces.
In addition, Türkiye is observing seven days of national mourning after the devastating quakes.
Daily Sabah reported:
Two major earthquakes and 648 aftershocks, that occurred since Monday according to the official data from AFAD, also affected sea levels, which rose particularly in the Iskenderun district of Hatay.
After two major earthquakes that shook Türkiye, the sea level rose on the coastal road in the Çay neighborhood of Hatay's Iskenderun district and overflowed the area near Mete Aslan Boulevard.
People, who visited the streets after the earthquake, were surprised that sea waters had flooded the roads, while it was notable that the sea did not recede even though it has been two days since the earthquake.
The Iskenderun District Governorate also warned people of the region not to enter damaged houses due to potential dangers posed by sea-water overflow in the coastal area. Citizens tried to remain in parks and closed neighborhood markets after the disaster.
Meanwhile resuce operations are continuing in all 10 provinces, with consoling news coming in from worsely hit provinces Hatay and Kahramanmaraş, where an 80-year old citizen named Abdurrahman and 3-year old Arif Kaan were rescued from the rubble, among others.
Two strong earthquakes on Monday jolted the southeastern part of the country. The earthquakes also hit several neighboring countries in the region, including Syria and Lebanon. Syria, already reeling from a decade long civil war, has been hit particularly badly with over 2,500 deaths and thousands of injuries.
Türkiye announced the closure of schools until Feb. 13 across the country and declared a week of mourning. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Tuesday also announced that a three-month state of emergency had been declared in the 10 provinces hit the worst by the deadly earthquakes.
Syria quake death toll surpasses 2,600 but many more still trapped
The death toll in Syria from a devastating earthquake has surpassed 2,600, according to Syrian state media and a rescue service operating in the opposition-held northwest.
Reuters quoted the White Helmets rescue team as saying that the casualty toll in opposition-held areas has risen to more than 1,280 deaths and more than 2,600 injured.
"The number is expected to rise significantly due to the presence of hundreds of families under the rubble, more than 50 hours after the earthquake," the White Helmets wrote onTwitter.
Overnight, the Syrian health minister said the number of dead in government-held parts of the country rose to 1,350, the state-run Al-Ikhbariya news outlet reported on its Telegram feed. The number of wounded was 2,054, he said.
The U.N. said it's "exploring all avenues" to get supplies to opposition-held northwestern Syria, and it released $25 million from its emergency fund to help kick-start the humanitarian response in Türkiye and Syria.
U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the road leading to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing from Türkiye to northern Syria was damaged, temporarily disrupting aid delivery to the opposition-held areas. He said the border crossing itself "is actually intact."
Bab al-Hawa is the only crossing through which U.N. aid is allowed into the area.
Dujarric said the U.N. is preparing a convoy to cross the conflict lines within Syria. But that would likely require a new agreement with Bashar Assad's government, which has laid siege to opposition-held areas throughout the civil war.
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