The number of victims after last week’s earthquake in Turkey and Syria has exceeded 40,000, the Turkish news agency “Anadolu” reports on Tuesday.
The death toll in Turkey has reached 35,418, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced.
At least 5,900 people have died in neighboring Syria.
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake rocked the Turkish-Syrian border region in the early hours of last Monday, followed a few hours later by a second 7.6-magnitude earthquake.
Turkey’s disaster management agency AFAD has recorded more than 2,400 aftershocks so far.
The UN has estimated that the death toll from the earthquakes could rise to 50,000 or more, and the chances of finding survivors are shrinking by the day.
Hans Klüge, director of the European region of the World Health Organization (WHO), called these earthquakes the worst natural disaster in the region in a century.
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