At least 36,187 people died and another 108,000 were injured in Turkey after two strong earthquakes hit the country on February 6, Turkey’s emergency and disaster management agency (AFAD) said on Thursday.
The quakes caused the collapse of thousands of buildings – under which tens of thousands of corpses may still be buried, several Turkish and international experts warned – and another 50,000 buildings were badly damaged and will have to be demolished.
This Thursday, a 17-year-old girl was rescued alive after spending 248 hours trapped in the rubble of a building in the province of Kahramanmaras, where the epicenter of the first earthquake was recorded.
The region affected by the earthquakes, of magnitude 7.8 and 7.5, extends over more than 100,000 square kilometers and is home to some 14 million people.
According to AFAD, more than 216,000 people were evacuated from the provinces most affected by the earthquakes.
Coskun Aral, a journalist and war photographer who was in the disaster zone, assured the EFE agency that there are tens of thousands of corpses under the rubble and that some will remain there for a long time.
“I have been to many war zones and disasters, but I have never seen anything like this,” Coskun said, warning that cholera outbreaks could occur if strong action is not taken now.
“Scabies already exists, people can’t wash from day one,” said the journalist.
Deniz Yavuzyilmaz, a lawmaker from the main opposition Social Democratic party CHP, said there is a risk of an epidemic because the bodies left in the rubble are beginning to decompose and members of the rescue teams removing the bodies are unable to wash or change their clothes.
Alpay Azap, a specialist in infectious diseases, indicated that there is still no epidemic in the area, but there is a risk, and that it is important that the bodies that are still among the rubble are properly buried.
Azap also mentioned the risk of transmission to humans of diseases from animals killed in the earthquake, as well as diarrhea due to problems in the drinking water supply.
On February 6, Turkey and Syria suffered an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale -with its epicenter in Turkish territory-, which was followed by several aftershocks, one of which had a magnitude of 7.5.
So far, around 5,000 people have been killed in Syria by the earthquakes.
Source: TSF
