The combined death toll from the devastating 6 February Turkey-Syria earthquakes has risen to 43,844. The figures are expected to continue to rise in both countries.
Here are the latest updates in the aftermath of the disaster that struck Turkey and Syria.
Turkey
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) announced that the number of people who lost their lives in earthquakes affecting 11 cities in the south and southeast is 38,044 so far. On Wednesday, Elazığ, an eastern province of Turkey, was also declared a disaster zone, ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Ömer Çelik announced.
After the two earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.7, which occurred approximately nine hours apart in the southeast of Turkey near the Syrian border, aftershocks still continue on the 12th day. There have been 4,734 aftershocks in the region, according to AFAD.
As rescue efforts continue 250 hours after the disaster, four people were pulled alive from the rubble on Thursday.
The treatment of 759 of the 1,464 unaccompanied children who were rescued from under the rubble continues, the Ministry of Family and Social Services announced. The identity of 267 of the unaccompanied children could not be confirmed.
The Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change Ministry has so far identified 84,726 collapsed or heavily damaged buildings that need urgent demolition in damage assessment operations in the quake-hit provinces.
The General Directorate of Security (EGM) initiated legal action against 377 people who shared ‘provocative’ posts regarding the earthquake on social media platforms.
Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Alpay Antmen shared a document on Thursday showing that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last year abolished a previous determination of some “disaster risk areas” in Hatay, one of the worst hit provinces in the earthquakes.
Erdoğan revoked the “disaster risk area” categorisation of six districts of Hatay on 4 February 2022, according to the document.
Syria
The death toll in Syria is at least 5,800 according to the United Nations, including 4,400 in rebel-held regions. The figures announced by the UN are higher than the figures of the Syrian government and civil defence officials in the northwest of the country. While it was announced that there were 2,274 deaths due to the earthquakes in the rebel-held northwest, Damascus stated that the death toll rose to 1,414 in the regions under the control of the government.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, says Syrian government forces and opposition groups clashed in northwestern Syria on Thursday night. It is the first time armed clashes are taking place in the region since the devastating earthquakes last week.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) withdrew an aid convoy that was prepared and waiting to enter the quake-hit regions in northwest Syria.
AANES’ attempts to deliver aid to the disaster zones under the control of the Turkish-backed opposition has been halted since 8 February as Turkish-backed opposition prevented the convey from crossing. The administration decided to pull back the aid convoy consisting of 30 tanks of fuel after nine days of waiting for the opposition’s approval.
Meanwhile, 100 convoys of fuel tanks sent by the AANES reached the Kurdish-majority regions of government-held Aleppo on Wednesday night after days of waiting.
