A situation that is getting worse day by day. Nearly 40,000 people lost their lives after the violent earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6. Tuesday evening, February 14, the authorities counted 39,106 dead, including 35,418 in southern Turkey and 3,688 in Syria. On Sunday, the UN said it expected those numbers to increase significantly.
For its part, the United Nations has launched an appeal for donations to meet the "tremendous needs" of the millions of people deprived of shelter, food and care after the earthquake. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged all member states to provide nearly $400 million "without delay" to ensure "humanitarian assistance desperately needed by almost five million Syrians", starting with shelter, medical care, food" for three months. He said there should soon be a similar call for Turkey.
“The needs are immense” and “we all know that life-saving aid is not coming in at the speed and scale needed,” the Secretary General insisted. “A week after the devastating earthquakes, millions of people across the region are struggling to survive, homeless and facing freezing temperatures,” he added.
"We are witnessing the worst natural disaster in the WHO Europe region in a century and we are still measuring its magnitude," said a World Health Organization official. A rare cause for consolation for rescuers, four people were still able to be extracted alive from the rubble on Tuesday in Turkey.
Like this Syrian couple in Antakya, Antioch of antiquity, one of the Turkish cities most affected by the earthquake, who exclaimed "Allahu akbar!" ("Allah is the greatest") once rescued, about 210 hours after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6, an Agence France-Presse photographer testified.
