The death toll from the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria rises to more than 12,000
The death toll from Monday’s powerful earthquakes exceeds 12,000 on Wednesday, including 9,057 in Turkey and 2,992 in Syria, as rescue efforts continue to find survivors among the rubble.
Likewise, in the two countries hit by the disaster, there are also more than 58,000 injured, many with fractures and serious cuts.
In Turkey, a total of 6,444 buildings in ten southeastern provinces have collapsed from strong earthquakes, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who this morning acknowledged that the authorities initially had some problems in the rescue efforts.
“The first day there were some problems, but the second and today things are under control. We will start removing the rubble and our goal is to rebuild the houses in Kahramanmaras and the other affected cities within a year,” he promised. For its part, in Syria, immersed in a civil war for more than a decade, the information on victims and those affected comes, on the one hand, from the government of Bashar al-Assad and, on the other, from the last enclave of the country controlled by the opposition, surrounded by Russian-backed government forces.