2024-07-31 11:23:03
The authority said at a press conference that search efforts have ended in many provinces but are continuing in Kahramanmaraş and Hatay provinces, in around 40 buildings.
Indeed, no new survivors have been pulled from the rubble in the past 24 hours, after a couple was rescued in Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, on Saturday, 296 hours after the earthquake.
In Kahramanmaraş province, the epicenter of the earthquake, the chances of survival appear lower than in Hatay, due to snow and temperatures reaching -15°C at night in snow-covered areas.
For his part, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay revealed that 105,000 buildings have collapsed or been seriously damaged and will be demolished.
More than 6,000 tremors have in fact been recorded since the disaster, one of which had a magnitude of 6.6 while 40 tremors varied between 5 and 6, according to AFAD, which also asked disaster victims not to try to enter damaged buildings to recover their belongings.
According to the latest report, the number of deaths from the devastating earthquake that struck the south of the country has risen to 40,689 people.
A strong earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale shook the Pazarcık district of Kahramanmaraş in southern Turkey on February 6, causing massive damage to the localities of “Gaziantep”, “Adana”, “Malatya”, “Diyarbakir”, “Sanliurfa” and “Osmaniye”, in addition to the epicenter.
A few hours after this first violent shock, another earthquake struck north of the city of Gaziantep with almost the same intensity and close to the epicenter of the first earthquake, which worsened the toll of the disaster.
Turkish authorities have declared official mourning for a period of seven days and a state of emergency in the affected areas for three months.
2024-07-31 11:23:03