The Turkish authorities put an end to the search for survivors on Tuesday in the province of Hatay, the province hardest hit by the earthquakes on February 6 and which suffered two more tremors on Monday night.
The magnitude 6.4 and 5.8 earthquakes last night caused the collapse of numerous buildings that had already been seriously damaged by the earthquakes 15 days ago.
Six people died as a result of the collapses, a figure that the authorities now give as definitive, according to the official Turkish news agency Anadolu, while 294 people, 18 of whom were seriously injured, received medical attention.
The death toll was not higher because since the first earthquake, which killed at least 42,310 people in Turkey, buildings in and around Antioch remain unoccupied and people have spent the night outdoors in tents or in manufactured homes that are being assembled.
At least three of the six victims were people who had entered vacant buildings still standing to retrieve their belongings, a common practice these days, but a very risky one as Monday night’s earthquake demonstrated.
The new earthquake and its aftershock, with an epicenter just a dozen kilometers south of Antioquia, also shook buildings that until now appeared intact, so that no home can be considered safe at the moment, according to the Turkish station NTV.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today that 139,000 buildings, including almost half a million homes or offices in the 11 affected provinces, were demolished or badly damaged by the quakes.
In total, after investigating more than a million buildings in the area, one in ten is collapsed or has to be urgently demolished, concluded the Minister of Urbanism, Murat Kurum.
The proportion is double in the two most affected provinces, Kahramanmaras and Hatay, where one in five controlled buildings is destroyed.
Hatay, a province of 1.6 million people with flourishing agriculture, industry, crafts and local tourism, is by far the most affected, with 37,000 ruined buildings.
The provincial capital, Antioquia, with about 400,000 inhabitants, is so destroyed that the economy will not be able to recover in the short term, Hikmet Çinçin, president of the local chamber of commerce, told broadcaster NTV.
According to this official, of the 2,000 registered small businesses, 1,700 were ruined by the earthquakes, causing an exodus of survivors who lack the necessary services for daily life.
Two industrial facilities in the hills on the outskirts of Antioquia withstood the earthquake virtually unscathed, but will not be able to continue operating as both workers and more educated employees have left the area, Çinçin said.
The local industry is now desperately looking for workers, but will have to close if no one stays to live in a city where there is no electricity at the moment, he concluded.
The earthquake on February 6, with its epicenter in Turkish territory, and which was followed by several aftershocks, left at least 44,000 dead and more than 100,000 injured in Turkey and Syria, figures that are still provisional and should continue to rise.
Source: TSF
