Turkey concludes search for earthquake survivors

The search for survivors after the earthquake on February 6 has been completed in all of Turkey with the exception of some points in two provinces, Hatay and Kahramanmaras, Yunus Sezer, the president of Turkey's disaster and emergency management agency, announced Sunday. Turkey (AFAD).

These two provinces have been the most devastated by the earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 on the 6th and, furthermore, they are the ones where the rescue teams arrived with the greatest delay.

“Every day we continue our work in the hope of finding one of our brothers alive,” Sezer said.

But the truth is that since Saturday afternoon there has been no new rescue of survivors.

The official death toll in Turkey stands at 40,689 —to which must be added the 5,800 reported in Syria—, and more than 21,000 wounded continue to be hospitalized, Sezer said.

However, it is believed that the figures could be higher.

First of all because no estimate has been published on how many people are still under the rubble or are missing.

And, furthermore, because a government delegate, Osman Bilgin, acknowledged on Sunday, during a meeting with those affected, that they could even increase fivefold: “The situation is much more terrible than what you have seen, than you know.

The figures are three or four times those that have been made public, perhaps even five times worse.”

The metropolitan mayor of Hatay, Lütfü Savas, affirmed that only in his province – one of the ten affected – there are 21.

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Urban Planning, nearly 831,000 buildings have already been inspected, of which more than 105,000 have been demolished by the earthquake or must be demolished due to having suffered significant structural damage.

In total there are more than 384,000 homes destroyed, or what is the same, more than 1.5 million people who have been left homeless.

Camps have been established for them and their evacuation is being promoted: until Sunday, and without counting those who have left by their own means, AFAD had transported more than 450,000 victims out of the affected region towards other provinces of the country.

Follow all the international information on

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber