« The quake struck 350 kilometers west of the region that was hit by two massive seismic disasters earlier this month. The death toll from the earlier disaster has surpassed 50,000 » reports Deutsche Welle on February 25, 2023.
At least 44,000 of the deaths were recorded in Turkey alone, according to AFAD.
More than 173,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged and nearly two million locals were made homeless, according to government data.
In Syria, 5,900 deaths have been reported so far, although a war monitor has said that 6,760 people have died.
The February 6 disasters are expected to have cost Turkey some $84 billion (€79 billion).
Nearly 200 detained over construction failures
Also Saturday, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said at least 184 people have been detained over alleged negligence concerning collapsed buildings following the quakes.
Among the detained are also contractors and the mayor of Gaziantep province’s Nurdagi district.
The government has been criticized for overlooking poor construction standards.
Mayor: Istanbul needs $40 billion to prepare for big quake
Meanwhile, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said his city, which sits close to a major fault line, needs an urgent urbanization program worth « around $30 billion to $40 billion » to prepare for an anticipated
major quake.
« The amount is three times more than Istanbul city’s annual budget, but we need to be ready before it is too late, » Imamoglu told a science council.
A potential quake of over magnitude 7.5 will damage nearly 500,000 buildings, inhabited by 6.2 million people, some 40% of the city’s population, according to a 2021 report by the Kandilli monitor.
Istanbul sits next to the notorious Northern Anatolian fault line. A major quake in 1999 that struck the Marmara region, including Istanbul, killed more than 18,000 people.