Death toll exceeds 50,000 in quake disaster

ANKARA

At least 50,096 people died in the devastating Feb. 6 earthquakes that ripped through Türkiye’s 11 southern provinces, the Emergency and Disaster Management Presidency (AFAD) has announced.

While the death toll surpasses 50,000, over 107,000 people got injured in the quake disaster, AFAD head Yunus Sezer stated while making a presentation to the Earthquake Investigation Committee established in the parliament.

Providing information regarding temporary housing services in the earthquake zone, Sezer noted that more than 501,000 tents have been installed so far.

Approximately 2 million earthquake survivors stay in 316 tent cities, Sezer stated.

Damage assessment studies were carried out in about 1.8 million following the deadly quakes, and 37,066 buildings were deemed risky and were demolished.

Orhan Tatar, one of the senior officials of AFAD, stated that more than 19,000 aftershocks have occurred since the first earthquake in the region.

“There are 485 active fault lines in Türkiye. Their total length is 14,500 kilometers. A total of 19,126 aftershocks occurred. You can observe an aftershock every three or four minutes in 43 days,” Tatar explained.

Structures that collapsed in the earthquakes were built on the faults, Tatar noted.

“Unfortunately, we saw that the places of destruction were on the faults. Villagers do not know that a fault passed their village. Extensive surface deformations also formed after the quakes,” Tatar said.

Kürşat Alyamaç from AFAD also stated that most of the collapsed structures were not built in accordance with the quake legislation and even lacked the supervision of engineers.

“A video showed the moment a building collapsed within six seconds. This would be impossible under normal circumstances,” Alyamaç said.

“This means that the structure was already barely standing. People must strictly comply with the quake regulations,” he warned.