Death toll passes 11,000 as Erdogan visits quake-affected areas

Rescuers are racing against time to save thousands of people believed to be buried under rubble in Turkey and Syria. Erdogan acknowledges issues with initial quake response

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has acknowledged that there were some issues in responding on the first day since the earthquakes but has urged Turkish people to be patient and united.

He said there had been problems with roads and airports but that everything would get better by the day.

Erdogan also said citizens should only heed communication from authorities and ignore “provocateurs,” as thousands of people complain about a lack of resources and slow response by officials. New houses will be built, he said, promising that no one will be left in the streets.

“This is the time for us to be united,” Erdogan added.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the death toll in the country from Monday’s earthquakes has reached 8,574, even as rescue workers are continuing to search for victims buried under mountains of rubble.

Erdogan was speaking from Kahramanmaras during a visit to some of the areas worst hit by the temblors.

At least 2,530 people have died in Syria, according to a tally of numbers made public by the government in Damascus and rescue groups in rebel-held regions, taking the total death toll from the earthquakes to in excess of 11,000.

Rescuers and civilians look for survivors under the rubble of collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras, close to the quake’s epicentre, the day after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the country’s southeast, on February 7, 2023. – Rescuers in Turkey and Syria braved frigid weather, aftershocks and collapsing buildings, as they dug for survivors buried by an earthquake that killed more than 5,000 people. Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake’s epicentre between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, a city of two million where entire blocks now lie in ruins under gathering snow.