I've seen estimates suggesting already 3,000 dead.
Just astonishing damage.
Just astonishing damage.
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Rescuers in Turkey and Syria were desperately combing through rubble in search of survivors in near-freezing temperatures after a powerful earthquake and aftershocks collapsed thousands of buildings, killed more than 3,800 people and raised the specter of a new humanitarian disaster in an area of the world already racked by war, a refugee crisis and deep economic troubles.
Really hope we are sending hospital ships, etc to demonstrate how NATO “friends” help out in times of need.
Full press releaseMy Administration has been working closely with our NATO Ally Turkiye, and I authorized an immediate U.S. response. At my direction, senior American officials reached out immediately to their Turkish counterparts to coordinate any and all needed assistance. Our teams are deploying quickly to begin to support Turkish search and rescue efforts and address the needs of those injured and displaced by the earthquake. U.S.-supported humanitarian partners are also responding to the destruction in Syria.
Some of these numbers are crazy!
Anger is growing in Turkey that poor enforcement of building regulations contributed to the collapse of many buildings in Monday's earthquakes, leading to the soaring death toll.
Construction regulations were tightened following previous disasters in Turkey, most recently in 2018.
Stricter safety standards were also brought in following the 1999 earthquake around the city of Izmit, in the north-west of the country, in which 17,000 people died.
But periodic "construction amnesties", which offer legal exemption to those structures built without the required safety certificates for a stated fee, have contributed to the recent catastrophe, experts suggest.
The loss of life is horrible. Thank you for the update.At least 16,000 dead and many more injured and/or displaced. The final toll will likely be multiples of the current number.
Over the past few decades Turkey has granted blanket amnesties/exemptions to their building codes, making the codes essentially pointless. There's no doubt that many are dead as a result.Also, just making the point - THIS is why the US (and other wealthy nations) have so many construction codes and such. Yes, bad things still happen - code violations are overlooked (either carelessly or nefariously) but nothing like the scale we're seeing in Turkey and Syria. It costs a lot more to build safe structures like we see on the west coast here in the US, but when disaster (eventually) hits, the loss of life is greatly reduced. While an order of magnitude lower in power, the Northridge quake of '94 that hit LA killed 'only' 57 people.
We have corruption here, but it is another universe compared to elsewhere. I don't think most people realize just how corrupt most of the rest world is. Every friend and colleague from other countries tells me how government officials will look the other way on anything (building codes, pharmaceutical safety, infrastructure safety, etc.) for a fee. It's disgusting.Also, just making the point - THIS is why the US (and other wealthy nations) have so many construction codes and such. Yes, bad things still happen - code violations are overlooked (either carelessly or nefariously) but nothing like the scale we're seeing in Turkey and Syria. It costs a lot more to build safe structures like we see on the west coast here in the US, but when disaster (eventually) hits, the loss of life is greatly reduced. While an order of magnitude lower in power, the Northridge quake of '94 that hit LA killed 'only' 57 people.
Death Toll: Almost 20,000 people have been killed by the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday, and the numbers are expected to keep rising. Turkish authorities have reported at least 16,546 deaths, and the Syrian toll totaled 3,162.