Yesterday, Saturday, Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soilo announced that the death toll following the major earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northwest Syria had risen to 45,986 people in Turkey alone.
In a press conference held by the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority "AFAD" in the state of Hatay in southern Turkey, Soylu said that the death toll under the rubble and in hospitals following the earthquake reached 45,986 people, including 4,267 Syrians, in Turkey alone.
In addition to the latest announced number of earthquake victims in Syria, which is 5,914 dead, the total death toll in the two countries has risen to nearly 52,000.
The Turkish Minister of Interior indicated that 13,072 aftershocks were recorded following the two violent earthquakes that occurred in the state of Kahramanmaraş.
On the sixth of last February, two earthquakes of magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, followed by thousands of aftershocks, some of which were of moderate intensity.
The disaster, which centered on the state of Kahramanmaraş, claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and millions of those affected, and left huge material damage in 11 Turkish states.
A large number of Syrian refugees live in the southern states of Turkey, which witnessed great damage as a result of the earthquake, due to their proximity to their country, which explains the high number of victims among them in Turkey, in addition to the victims in Syria.