Istanbul: The death toll from the catastrophic earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has climbed above 35,000, with search and rescue teams starting to wind down their work.
Local officials and medics said 31,643 people have died in Turkey and 3,581 in Syria from last Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 35,224.
The Turkey and Syria earthquake’s rescue phase is “coming to a close”, with urgency now switching to providing shelter, food, schooling and psychosocial care, United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said during a visit to Aleppo in northern Syria on Monday.
“What is the most striking here, is even in Aleppo, which has suffered so much these many years, this moment, that moment... was about the worst that these people have experienced,” Griffiths added.
The UN official also mentioned that the United Nations will have aid moving from government-held regions in Syria to the rebel-held northwest of the country – also devastated by the deadly earthquake. More than 4,300 people were dead and more than 7,600 others were injured in northwest Syria as of February 12 following the deadly earthquake and aftershocks in neighbouring Turkey, the UN office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said in a statement on Monday.
Rescue workers in Syria’s opposition-held northwest zones have revealed a lower toll as of Friday, and are anticipating announcing higher toll in the hours ahead.
Rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey on Monday, local media reported, a week after the earthquakes that ravaged southern Turkey and northwest Syria.
Sibel Kaya, 40, was rescued in southern Gaziantep province, some 170 hours after the first of two quakes struck the region, the report said.
Rescue workers in Kahramanmaras had also made contact with three survivors, believed to be a mother, daughter and baby, in the ruins of a building.