The race against the clock and the cold continues in Türkiye and in northern Syria to extract survivors from the two violent earthquakes which ravaged the region on Monday. The toll of the victims, always provisional, increases from hour to hour.
In the evening of Tuesday, February 7, the recorded report reported more than 7,300 people in Türkiye and Syria. The deadlines are established there at 5434 dead in Türkiye at the moment. In Syria, 1872 dead have so far been identified, a provisional total of 7306 and more than 25,000 injured, including 20,000 in Türkiye.
In total, twenty-three million people are “potentially exposed, including about five million vulnerable people,” warned the World Health Organization (WHO) while more than 8,000 people were extracted alive from the rubble in Turkey.
The WHO said he expected the worst and feared “balance sheets eight times higher than the initial numbers”. On Monday day, no less than 185 aftershocks were recorded, following the first two jerks: one of 7.8 occurred in the middle of the night (04:17 local), the other, of magnitude 7.5, at midday, both in the southeast of Turkey.
During the night of Monday to Tuesday, nearly fifteen tremors were recorded by the USGS, the American institute for the surveillance of earthquakes. These displayed magnitudes between 4 and 5.5 on the Richter scale. A total of 312 replicas have been recorded since Monday morning, said the Turkish vice-president on TRT.
The AFAD, an official Turkish rescue organization, reports 5,775 buildings destroyed, but more than 11,000 could be permanently damaged.