Ankara/Damascus, Feb 11, Desh Click News
As search and rescue efforts continued for a sixth straight day on Saturday to find more survivors, the number of people killed following the devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6 has reached at least 23,831, according to authorities.
In its latest update, Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said the overall death toll currently stood at 20,318, with 80,052 reported injuries, Anadolu News Agency reported.
The 7.7- and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes, centred in the Kahramanmaras province, affected more than 13 million people across the provinces of Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa.
In Syria, the total number of those killed stands at 3,513, CNN reported.
According to volunteer organisation Syria Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, 2,166 deaths were registered in rebel-held areas in the northwest of the country.
Meanwhile, the Syrian state media has said that 1,347 fatalities were reported in government-controlled parts of the war-torn nation.
The delivery of urgent supplies to quake-hit rebel-held areas in northern and northwestern Syria has been complicated by a long-running civil war between opposition groups and the Syrian government.
On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged that his government's response to the massive disaster was not as fast as desired, reports Xinhua news agency.
"Too many buildings were damaged, unfortunately. We were not able to speed up our interventions as quickly as we had desired," he told reporters in the quake-affected Adiyaman province.
The emergency work was "very difficult" as the devastating effect of the earthquake spread over an area of 500 km, he said, adding that the harsh winter has been another obstacle.
"Most of the public workers, who would have conducted the first intervention and organizations, were themselves under the collapsed buildings," the President added.
Erdogan had earlier admitted that the government had shortcomings in responding to disaster on the first day, but then had better managed the situation.
But now the country has gathered "perhaps the world's largest search and rescue teams" with more than 141,000 staff, including foreign emergency teams, he said.(IANS)