BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 8. The UN has announced that it is going to provide $25 million in humanitarian aid to Türkiye and Syria following deadly earthquakes that have claimed more than 6,000 lives, the official representative of the Secretary General of the world organization Stéphane Dujarric said, Trend reports, citing Turkish media.
"UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination Teams are in Adana today and will travel to Gaziantep tomorrow to support Turkish search and rescue teams," he said.
According to Dujarric, there are Syrian refugees among the victims of the earthquake in Türkiye. He noted that more than 1.7 million of the 15 million people living in 10 provinces affected by the earthquakes in Türkiye are Syrian refugees.
"We will do whatever the Turkish Government wants us to do, and try to be as helpful as possible," he added.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 hit southeastern Türkiye on Feb. 6, 2023. The earthquake occurred at a depth of seven kilometers in the Pazarcik region of Kahramanmaras Province. The provinces of Hatay, Gaziantep, Kilis, Osmaniye, Malatya, Adiyaman, Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Adana, and Kahramanmaras were subjected to severe destruction.
The quake’s epicenter was located 26 km away from the city of Gaziantep with a population of about 1.06 million.
Türkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said that three more earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.4-6.6 rocked Gaziantep province in south-eastern Türkiye. As a result of the earthquake that hit Türkiye, strong tremors were also felt in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Cyprus.
According to the latest data, as a result of the earthquake, 5,434 people were killed, 31,777 people were injured, and 5,775 buildings were destroyed.