Turkey’s disaster management authority said that the death toll from Monday’s Turkey-Syria earthquakes has passed 30,000, with the United Nations warning that the final number may double.
Officials and medics said 29,605 people had died in Turkey and 3,574 in Syria from the 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 33,179.
The United Nations says up to 5.3 million people in Syria may be homeless after the earthquakes, while nearly 900,000 people are in urgent need of hot food in Turkey and Syria.
Workers in Turkey are still trying to pull survivors from the rubble and there have been miraculous scenes of survival and rescue, even days after the quake.
Powerful earthquakes rocked Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province, located in the country’s southeast, on Monday. The tremors, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, were felt in 10 provinces as well as in neighboring countries, of which Syria was hardest hit.
MNA/PR