ANKARA, February 8. /TASS/. The death toll from the devastating February 6 earthquake that hit southeastern Turkey has exceeded 9,000, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.
"To date, the death toll has reached 9,057, and 52,979 people have been injured, while 6,444 buildings have been destroyed," Erdogan said in the quake-ravaged city of Hatay.
Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnous, in turn, announced that over 270 buildings had been destroyed in the four provinces of the country suffering the most damage from the earthquake. "The earthquake destroyed 276 buildings in four provinces, while the number of damaged buildings is much higher," he said at a press conference in Aleppo.
Meanwhile, the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft carrying another team of rescue and medical workers landed in Turkey, a ministry spokesperson told TASS.
Russian troops helped clear the rubble in five locations in Syria over the past 24 hours, recovering five bodies and providing medical assistance to 11 people, Deputy Head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria Major General Oleg Yegorov said. "The mission involved 300 personnel and 54 pieces of equipment," he specified. According to Yegorov, three humanitarian aid distribution points are operating in the provinces of Aleppo and Latakia. The Center distributed over 6.5 tons of food among those in need over the past 24 hours.
A powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province, located in the country’s southeast, on February 6. The tremors, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, were felt in ten provinces, as well as in neighboring countries, including Syria. The latest reports say that over 9,000 people have lost their lives in Turkey and more than 52,000 have been injured. According to the Syrian Health Ministry, the devastating quake has left 1,200 people dead in the already war-ravaged Middle Eastern country, with the number of those injured exceeding 2,200. There is no confirmed information about the casualties and damage in the areas that are not under Damascus’ control. According to the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV channel, at least 1,500 people were killed and more than 2,700 suffered injuries in the northern areas of Syria controlled by illegal armed units.