The authorities of Turkey and Syria have indicated that the balance of fatalities due to the earthquakes registered this Monday near the border of both countries is 8,764 people, while the number of injured exceeds 41,665 victims, in a balance still without finish defining.
The vice president of Turkey, Fuat Otkay, specified early on Wednesday that 6,234 people have died in his country, while 37,011 have been injured.
The Government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has created a Crisis Management Center in the Ministry of Defense to “confront this great disaster”, in order to transport personnel and the rescue team through an air aid bridge.
Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has detailed that 2,600 rescue personnel have been transferred from various parts of the country to the affected places, along with 78 vehicles, other materials and 75 aircraft, the Anatolia news agency reported.
For its part, the earthquake has left 1,250 dead and 2,054 injured in areas of Syria controlled by the authorities, according to data from the Syrian Ministry of Health published on its Facebook social network profile. These data correspond to the provinces of Aleppo, Hama, Latakia, Tartus and the areas of Idlib in the hands of government forces.
“We are in a race against time and working with the maximum energy available and with the cooperation of all parties,” reads a statement from the Syrian Health Ministry, which indicates that the country’s Executive has reviewed the emergency measures that govern the situation.
To the Syrian government figures we must add more than 1,280 deaths and 2,600 wounded in the areas controlled by the rebels in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo (northwest), according to what the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the ‘white helmets’, has said. through his Twitter account, where he insisted that “the balance is expected to increase significantly, since hundreds of families remain trapped under the rubble more than 50 hours after the earthquake.”
Likewise, the ‘white helmets’ have indicated that more than 360 buildings have been completely destroyed, while more than a thousand are “severely destroyed”.
