Turkey ends quake rescue efforts except in two provinces: official

Four men carry a metal frame along a destroyed cobbled street in Demirkopru, a small Turkish village now divided by a large crack in Hatay on February 18, 2023. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit near Gaziantep, Turkey, in the early hours of February 6, followed by another 7.5-magnitude tremor just after midday. The quakes caused widespread destruction in southern Turkey and northern Syria and has killed more than 40,000 people (Photo by Yasin AKGUL / AFP)

Istanbul, Turkey — Turkey has ended rescue efforts in all provinces except the two hardest hit by last week’s massive quake that killed tens of thousands of people, the Turkish disaster agency said Sunday.

“In many of our provinces, search and rescue efforts have been completed. They continue in Kahramanmaras and Hatay provinces,” the agency’s chief Yunus Sezer told reporters in Ankara.

The epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake on February 6 was in Pazarcik district in Kahramanmaras.

Sezer said search and rescue efforts continued at around 40 buildings in the provinces on the 14th day, but expected this number to fall by Sunday evening.

The agency head also said Turkey’s death toll had risen to 40,689.

The total death toll including Syria is now 44,377.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said Saturday that some 105,000 buildings either collapsed, needed to be demolished or were severely damaged in the quake.

There had been breathless coverage since the quake of rescue teams finding survivors.

That has since slowed down with no survivors found in at least 24 hours.

On Saturday, rescuers found a man and a woman alive in the 296th hour in the southern Turkish city of Antakya but their three children did not survive, local media said.

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