The death toll from the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, which has already passed 28,000, will “double or more,” warned UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths.
“I find it difficult to estimate [um balanço] precisely because we have to dig under the rubble, but I’m sure it will double, or more,” Griffiths told British television’s Sky News.
“We haven’t really started counting the deaths yet,” added the UN emergency coordinator, who visited the southeastern Turkey town of Kahramanmaras, close to the earthquake’s epicenter, on Saturday.
Syria and Turkey were hit by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the early hours of Monday, followed by several aftershocks, one of which measured 7.5.
The earthquakes killed at least 28,191 people – 24,617 in Turkey and 3,574 in Syria – according to the latest official figures from the Turkish and Syrian authorities, put forward by the AFP bureau.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said more than 32,000 members of Turkish organizations and 8,294 rescuers from abroad continued to search the rubble in extremely low temperatures.
A team of 52 Portuguese agents succeeded on Saturday in rescuing a 10-year-old child in Antakya, in southern Turkey’s Hatay region, Secretary of State for Civil Protection Patrícia Gaspar said.
“Soon, people responsible for search and rescue will give way to humanitarian organizations whose job it is to care for the extraordinary number of people affected in the coming months,” Griffiths said, also on Saturday, in a video posted on the social network was placed. Twitter.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 26 million people have been affected by the earthquakes, “including about five million vulnerable people,” said the organization, whose director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, arrived in Aleppo, Syria, on Saturday.
“I am heartbroken by the conditions the survivors are facing, the freezing weather and the extremely limited access to shelter, food, water, warmth and medical care,” he wrote on Twitter.
In addition to humanitarian concerns, the WHO also launched an appeal for the urgent collection of $42.8 million, about €40 million, and warned of the risk of the spread of cholera, which has resurfaced in Syria.
The United Nations has warned that at least 870,000 people are in urgent need of hot meals in Turkey and Syria. An estimated 5.3 million people are currently displaced in Syria alone.
Source: DN
