Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared a three-month state of emergency in 10 southeastern provinces hit by a major earthquake that has claimed thousands of lives.
Rescue in recovery work in the isolated region near Syria has been hamstrung by a fierce winter storm that has made some roads impassable and slowed the delivery of food and aid, reports AFP.
Erdogan said a series of emergency measures would be taken to flood the affected areas with humanitarian relief workers and financial aid.
“We have decided to declare a state of emergency to ensure that our (rescue and recovery) work can be carried out quickly,” Erdogan said in televised remarks. “We will quickly complete the presidential and parliamentary processes related to this decision, which will cover our 10 provinces where the earthquake has been experienced and will last for three months.”
Erdogan’s government is coming under growing pressure on social media for what his critics view as a slow response to Turkey’s biggest earthquake in nearly a century.
The latest toll showed Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor and its aftershocks killing 3,549 people in Turkey and 1,602 in government- and rebel-controlled parts of Syria.
Erdogan said his government would send more than 50,000 aid workers to the area and allocate 100 billion liras ($5.3 billion) in financial help.
Erdogan’s handling of the biggest natural disaster in his two-decade rule could prove crucial ahead of tightly-contested parliamentary and presidential polls on May 14.
Around 23 mn May be affected by earthquake in Turkey, Syria: WHO
Senior officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that Syria’s humanitarian needs were the highest after a major earthquake killed thousands there and in southern Turkey, reports Reuters. Adelheid Marschang, WHO Senior Emergency Officer, said Turkey had a strong capacity to respond to the crisis but that the main unmet needs in the immediate and mid-term would be across the border in Syria, already grappling with a years-long humanitarian crisis due to the civil war and a cholera outbreak.
“This is a crisis on top of multiple crises in the affected region said at the organization’s board meeting in Geneva,” she said.
“All over Syria, the needs are the highest after nearly 12 years of protracted, complex crisis, while humanitarian funding continues to decline.”
She said that some 23 million people, including 1.4 million children, were likely to be exposed both senior officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that Syria’s humanitarian needs were the highest after a major earthquake killed thousands there and in southern Turkey.
Adelheid Marschang, WHO Senior Emergency Officer, said Turkey had a strong capacity to respond to the crisis but that the main unmet needs in the immediate and mid-term would be across the border in Syria, already grappling with a years-long humanitarian crisis due to the civil war and a cholera outbreak.
“This is a crisis on top of multiple crises in the affected region said at the organization’s board meeting in Geneva,” she said.
“All over Syria, the needs are the highest after nearly 12 years of protracted, complex crisis, while humanitarian funding continues to decline.”
She said that some 23 million people, including 1.4 million children, were likely to be exposed in both countries following the earthquake and its aftershocks that reduced thousands of buildings to rubble.
WHO said it was dispatching emergency supplies, including trauma and emergency surgical kits, and activating a network of emergency medical teams.
“It’s now a race against time,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Every minute, every hour that passes, the chances of finding survivors alive diminish.
He said the WHO was especially concerned about areas of Turkey and Syria where no information had emerged since Monday’s earthquake.
“Damage mapping is one way to understand where we need to focus our attention,” he said. countries following the earthquake and its aftershocks that reduced thousands of buildings to rubble.
