Turkish authorities have raised to 47,932 the death toll from the succession of earthquakes that struck the south of the country and northwestern Syria more than a month ago, increasing by almost 2,000 the latest toll confirmed earlier in the week.
According to the Turkish Minister of the Interior, Suleyman Soylu, the authorities have recognized more than 6,200 foreign nationals, including Syrians, among the total number of dead, while there are still more than 1,600 unidentified bodies, reports the Anatolia news agency.
With this new balance, the total death toll in Turkey and Syria is around 54,000 dead as a result of tremors that Turkish authorities have described as »the deadliest in the history» of the country.
The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, this week praised the »superhuman effort» carried out by the country’s health personnel and emergency services, thanks to which Turkey has been able to promote »unprecedented» search efforts.
In addition to personal damage, the earthquakes have left 230,000 buildings unusable. As a result, 3,320,000 people have been evacuated, 1.5 million of whom are living in tents. There are 160,000 people in shelters and 130,000 in hotels throughout the country.
More than a month after the tragedy, Mahmut Cuhadar, governor of Adiyaman province, one of the territories affected by the tremors, has confirmed this Friday his resignation for health reasons.
This is the first political resignation in the aftermath of the disaster, although the resignation is not directly related to the earthquakes or the subsequent management of the aftermath by the authorities.
However, Cuhadar has linked his resignation to health problems, thus putting aside the theory of a resignation over management The February 6 earthquakes, which have been followed by more than 11,000 aftershocks, according to AFAD data, have also caused about 6,000 fatalities in Syria, although the number of victims in the Arab country is much more difficult to estimate, especially in the northwest, in the hands of rebel groups.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
