Turkey and Syria: more than 1,700 people confirmed dead after two large earthquakes strike
More than 1,700 now confirmed dead in Turkey and Syria after two large earthquakes.
Turkey has raised the official death toll from the earthquakes to 1,121, Reuters reports, citing the country’s emergency AFAD disaster agency, bringing the combined total in Turkeyand Syria to over 1,700 confirmed dead.
Syria’s health ministry said earlier that more than 326 people had been killed and 1,042 injured.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) has put the death toll in the areas of north-west Syria that the government does not control at 255 killed and 811 injured.
The first quake struck as people slept overnight, and measured magnitude 7.8, one of the most powerful quakes in the region in at least a century. It was felt as far away as Cyprus and Cairo. The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said preliminary data showed the second large quake measured 7.7 magnitude, and was 67km (42 miles) north-east of Kahramanmaraş.
In 1999, a tremor of similar magnitude to today’s quakes in Turkey devastated Izmit killing more than 17,000. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip, Erdoğan has described it as the worst disaster for the country since 1939, when an earthquake killed more than 32,000 people and injured more than 100,000.
Meanwhile, the UK said it was sending 76 UK search & rescue specialists, four search dogs and rescue equipment to arrive on Monday evening. The UK is also sending an emergency medical team to assess the situation on the ground. Ministers added they were in contact with the UN on emergency humanitarian support to those affected in Syria.
Turkey’s neighbour Greece and other countries in the region have offered to send immediate assistance to help with the rescue effort. “Greece is mobilizing its resources and will assist immediately,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote in a tweet.
Egypt’s foreign ministry, in a statement early Monday, offered help to both Turkey and Syria. Residents in Cairo felt tremors from the quake.
French President Emmanuel Macron said France stood ready to provide emergency aid: “Our thoughts are with the bereaved families,” Macron tweeted.
In Germany, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) is preparing to deliver emergency generators, tents and blankets. Emergency shelters and water treatment systems could also be provided, the German interior minister Nancy Faeser said.
Sir Stephen O’Brien, the former UN humanitarian coordinator, said “Turkey has a sophisticated and experienced team of earthquake experts. That will not be the case in Syria, far from it”. But he added “in Syria it is a conflict zone and we have not got clarity as to about whether the UN through OCHA has consent to go into the country”.
He said in war torn Idlib, where the White Helmets is active, there is little help. “I very much hope there will be no objections to offer help. This is too big for any one country to handle. We have get good command and control on the ground to save lives.”
