Türkiye halts rescue operations, death toll rises

The Government of Türkiye today suspended rescue operations 13 days after the devastating 7.8 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes hit the country, and reported that the death toll from the disaster is nearly 40,700.

In Hatay, one of the most affected southern provinces, rescuers are continuing their work, having pulled three survivors from the rubble in the last few hours.

The chairman of the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority AFAD, Yunus Sezer, told a press conference that 14,000 heavy machinery and more than 270,000 people are still deployed in Hatay and Kahramanmaras, according to the Hürriyet daily newspaper.

Work is underway to put 100,000 containers housing units into operation within two months and the distribution of humanitarian aid to the more than one million people affected.

Damage assessment shows more than 830,000 damaged buildings, according to the latest assessment.

Our air vehicles continue to work 24 hours a day and more than 12 million food packages were distributed, Sezer reported.

At the time, the German risk analysis company Risklayer warned that the final death toll could reach between 75 and 90,000, but national experts have raised this figure to 155,000.