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One year passes since devastating quake in Türkiye

06 February 2024 00:00 (UTC +04:00)

One year has passed since two earthquakes with 7.8 and 7.5 magnitudes left tens of thousands of casualties in south of Türkiye and northwest of Syria, APA reports.

As a result of devastating earthquake involving Gaziantep, Hatay, Adiyaman, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Diyarbakir, and Sanliurfa Provinces of Türkiye, and Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia Provinces of Syria, cities and settlements were wiped off the Earth, human casualties in Turkiye was more than 50 thousand, while in Syria up to 9 thousand.

There were four Azerbaijani students among casualties in Türkiye.

The quake with a magnitude of 7.8, which lasted for 65 seconds, was so intensive that even felt in Egypt.

Scope of the natural disaster can also be measured with still continuation of the measures taken in the direction of elimination of consequences of it today. As a result of the quake involving 11 provinces of Türkiye, buildings, roads, and airports became useless, historical constructions were destroyed, and more than one million people were left homeless within minutes. According to the latest information, after the earthquake, only 250 thousand of the 1.7 million population of Hatay City remained in the city.

It was the fifth most devastating quake of the last 30 years. According to calculations, Türkiye will need USD 150 billion for 5 years to eliminate the consequences of the disaster.

Operative humanitarian aid activity, which was started immediately after the natural disaster, had two directions – search-rescue and aid to the survivors. The difficult part of the work was certainly conduction of search-rescue operations, the immediate removal of people under debris. To this end, Türkiye mobilized its all power for the quake zone. However, in the race against time, the single participation of the country would not be enough. So, aid was sent from all points of the world for Turkiye’s fourth international aid call. Certainly, brother Azerbaijan became the country, which arrived first. Under the instruction of President Ilham Aliyev, more than 400 rescuers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MES) were provided with the necessary equipment and sent to the quake zone immediately. More than 40 medical personnel of the MES assisted the injured in field hospitals in the zone. Military-medical team of the Azerbaijani Army was also involved in the area.

In total, about 12 thousand foreigners participated in search-rescue works in Türkiye.

In all parts of Türkiye, people organized various campaigns and tried to provide humanitarian aid. In these difficult days of Türkiye, the people of Azerbaijan also demonstrated strong solidarity and mobilization. Humanitarian aid centers were established all over the country, and emergency winter clothes, food, hygiene products, etc. were collected and sent to Türkiye in continuous trucks. Such a large-scale mobilization of Azerbaijanis took place earlier during the 44-day Patriotic War. During the first three days of the disaster, citizens of Azerbaijan transferred nearly USD 1 million to Türkiye for charity purposes.

Within the framework of the intensive program conducted in the direction of provision of those, who lost houses in the quake, with houses, construction of more than 300 thousand houses has been started and about 50 thousand of them have already been handed over.

Azerbaijan also continues its humanitarian activity in Kahramanmaras province and closely participates in reconstruction and restorarion works, construction of social facilities there.