Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the death toll from the earthquake across Turkey had risen to 19,388, pointing out that “there are no words to express the tragedy that Turkey is experiencing, and the number of deaths is increasing moment by moment.”
Erdogan indicated, “We have allocated a budget to provide initial aid to the survivors, and we will start by providing 15,000 Turkish liras for each affected family,” adding that “we will work on reconstruction as soon as possible after removing the rubble within a year, and we ask the people for patience.”
He revealed, “There are communication sites that publish false news that provokes people’s feelings, and we must not allow them to do so,” stressing, “We are living through a difficult period, but we will overcome it.”
A devastating earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck southern Turkey and northern Syria at dawn on Monday, while the aftershocks of the earthquake reached other countries in the region, and were felt by residents in Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt.
