ANKARA, March 6. /TASS/. The death toll from the February 6 devastating earthquakes in Turkey has exceeded 46,000, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.
"We lost 46,104 our countrymates as a result of the earthquake. Since the first quake on February 6, we, the government and all the ministries, have urgently mobilized," he told journalists after a cabinet meeting.
According to Erdogan, it was very difficult to organize clear-up works in the first hours after the earthquake because the damage was too great. "But we did not give up in the face of these difficulties and invigorates efforts at all levels within several hours, giving priority to rescue operations," he said, adding that some 230,000 buildings in the quake-ravaged regions cannot be used any longer.
He said that more than three million people had been evacuated from the affected areas to other Turkish regions. The government plans to extend temporary accommodation camps and build some 100,000 portable homes, the so-called container homes. He also promised to build new dwelling houses instead of those ruined within a year.
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 thousands of aftershocks, were felt in ten provinces as well as in neighboring countries, including Syria. According to the Syrian health ministry, the earthquake claimed more than 1,400 lives. However, international non-government organizations that the death toll is much higher, since the quake mostly hit those regions that are not controlled by the Syrian government.