ANKARA, February 17. /TASS/. The number of people killed by the two devastating earthquakes in Turkey is nearing 40,000, the country’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Friday.

"According to the latest reports, the twin earthquakes left 39,672 people dead and 105,505 people injured," he said on the TRT television channel.

The minister went on to say that some 82,000 buildings either collapsed or were critically damaged by the disaster. Rescue and recovery efforts at the sites of over 20,000 collapsed buildings either continue or have already been completed.

Two powerful 7.7-magnitude and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes 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.