In Turkey, as a result of the earthquakes last week, more than 82,000 buildings collapsed or were seriously damaged. This was announced by Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on Friday. He also said that 39,672 people in Turkey have died in the earthquakes so far.
Due to the magnitude of the destruction in the country, earthquake victims are also being sheltered in other parts of Turkey. Turkey’s death toll, along with Syria’s, now exceeds 45,000. It should be noted that no new figures have been released from Syria for several days. The death toll there stands at more than 5,800.
There is still a search for victims, but the chance that they are found alive is very small. People have been rescued in recent days. For example, a 45-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building 278 hours after the first earthquake in the Turkish province of Hatay on Friday. It is not clear how many people are still missing at this time.
In the strong earthquake that hit Turkey in 1999, 112,000 houses collapsed and almost 400,000 houses were severely damaged.
“In the past twenty years, numerous measures have been taken to prevent a recurrence of this situation. But because we have made just as many mistakes, we have not made any progress,” said Orhan Sarialtun of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB). ) about that earlier against NU.nl.
