More than 24,000 People Died in Turkey and Syria after the Catastrophic Earthquakes

More than 24,000 people have died in Turkey and Syria since the catastrophic earthquakes at the beginning of the week, according to the latest figures.

More than 20,600 people have died in Turkey, the Directorate for Disaster and Emergency Management announced this morning. The injured are 80,000. The victims in Syria are nearly 4,000, and more than 7,000 people are injured or missing, notes the BBC. Nearly 1,900 are the aftershocks so far.

The Bulgarian volunteers managed to find one more living person among the ruins in the Turkish city of Hatay. Earlier, Bulgarian teams found and rescued two people in Kahramanmaras.

Georgi Vlaikov from the Association "Emergency Rescue - Plovdiv" told the BNR:

"There is hope, we know that we are racing against time. We see what these people have been through and what they are going through now. The average temperature here is minus 10-12 degrees. This is very tiring for the teams and people. But despite everything, we strive to continue we do it as long as possible, because in this way we give the possibility of a greater chance of survival for people who are still alive and are under the rubble".

A woman buried under debris in the town of Besni was pulled out alive after a difficult rescue operation that lasted for hours with the participation of Bulgarian and Polish firefighters.

In another Turkish city - Antakya, a dog of the Bulgarian Mountain Rescue Service found five survivors on the fifth day after the earthquakes.

More than 12,100 buildings in Turkey were completely destroyed or severely damaged. The builder of the luxury housing cooperative in Hatay, under the ruins of which a family from Kardjali remained after the earthquakes, was arrested at the airport in Istanbul while trying to leave for Montenegro.

In Syria, a six-year-old boy was found alive in the rubble in the town of Jindires, while three survivors were rescued in Ebla.

About 870,000 people in Turkey and Syria urgently need food, according to the United Nations.

Actions continue in Bulgaria to collect monetary and material donations to help those in need in the two countries affected by the earthquakes.

Turkish Ambassador Eileen Sekizkök announced that the victims mostly needed tents, blankets, gas stoves and electricity generators.

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