Death toll from the powerful earthquakes in southern Türkiye on Feb. 6 has risen to 46,104, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday.
"Today, as we leave behind the fourth week since the earthquakes, we more clearly see the magnitude of the disaster we experienced and feel the pain of our losses more deeply," Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara.
On Feb. 6, the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes struck 11 provinces — Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa. More than 13.5 million people in Türkiye have been affected by the devastating quakes, as well as many others in northwestern Syria.
"Our aim is to start the construction of 244,000 houses and 75,000 village homes in the next two months," Erdogan said, adding that the construction of 22,000 of these had already begun.
A total of 488,000 new homes will be built for disaster victims in the quake-hit areas within a year, he said.
The president also said that 100,000 containers would be set up within two months in the region for 500,000 earthquake victims to live in better conditions.
He noted that Türkiye had launched its national "risk shield" model last week for building new residential homes reinforced against future disasters.
"We have already started preparations for the work we will do in many areas, from disaster law to strengthening the institutional structure of disaster management," he said.
Erdoğan said the earthquakes turned into a general disaster felt in other 70 of the country's 81 provinces with its humanitarian and economic consequences.
"It is incumbent upon us to get all our quake-stricken cities back on their feet as a whole, together with their civilizations and cultural values," the president stressed.
