More of 5,000 people have died as a result of the succession of earthquakes registered this Monday in the southern turkeynear the border with Syriaaccording to updated balances of victims provided by the authorities of both countries.
The geological service of Colombia recorded at dawn a new seismic event in Turkey with a magnitude of 5.7 and shallow depth. And it is that since the two earthquakes have occurred 312 replicas.
According to the authorities, 13 and a half million people They have been left homeless and the number of people under the rubble is unknown, which could dramatically increase the death toll if those who survive under the rubble are not rescued promptly. So far they report 3,419 dead in Turkey and 1,602 fatalities in Syria. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the death toll could even double.
Meanwhile, search and rescue work continues after the earthquake that has completely destroyed thousands of buildings. But the rescues have been hindered due to weather conditions, since in the territory Snow water begins to fall and temperatures of up to 15 degrees below zero are expected.
The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) calculates that more de 6,200 buildings have been completely destroyedmainly as a consequence of 7.4 earthquake that shook the country at dawn and a subsequent earthquake, already at noon, that reached magnitude 7.6 on the Richter scale.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has indicated that the event is “the biggest disaster since the 1939 earthquake”which left more than 30,000 dead.
“The alert continues in all public and private health facilities, and all health cadres are working to the maximum of their capacity, and the continuous response is being coordinated in the various governorates,” reads the statement from the Syrian Health Ministry. on his Facebook profile.
To these figures must be added more than 700 dead and 2,000 wounded in rebel-held areas in Idlib and Aleppo provincesin the northwest of the Arab country, as indicated by the Syrian Civil Defense, known as “white helmets”, through their Twitter account, where they lamented “the catastrophe and devastation” caused by the earthquake.
The “white helmets” have also called on “all humanitarian organizations and international organizations to provide material and assistance support to organizations” in order to “respond to this disaster and urgently help the victims of the earthquake”.
Thus, they have detailed that some 210 buildings “have completely collapsed” because of the earthquake, while more than 440 have been “partially destroyed” and that “thousands more have been harmed.”