A week after the earthquakes on February 6 in Turkey and Syria, a German risk analysis company warned on Tuesday that the final death toll could range from 75,000 to 90,000, while the Turkish experts who further raise that balance.
Until now, The worst earthquake of the 21st century was the one that occurred in the Chinese region of Sichuan in May 2008 –with a magnitude of 8 degrees – and that left more than 90,000 dead.
In Turkey and Syria the power of the earthquakes was somewhat lower, 7.7 and 7.6, and the region has less population density than the Chinese province, but there were other elements that increased mortality.
The disaster risk analysis company Risklayer, based in the German city of Karlsruhe, initially predicted a death toll of more than 52,000, with the upper range of its calculations even exceeding 100,000.
(Also read: Earthquake in Turkey: see the shocking images of the NASA catastrophe)
The basis of the calculation is a model that combines global databases with images from drones and satellites to assess the extent of the damage. Days later, they raised their estimates because The damage was greater than what was initially considered, since the complete collapse of numerous residential buildings raised the death toll.
“Most of the deaths would have occurred in those multi-story apartment buildings,” Risklayer experts said on social media.
The company’s latest analysis put the number of victims at the same level as in Sichuan “which means that, Unfortunately, there are probably between 75,000 and 90,000 deaths.”
According to official data, more than 11,000 buildings collapsed during the earthquakes, many of them multi-story apartment blocks where rescue efforts are very complicated – heavy machinery is needed – and the victims are numerous.
The seismic shocks occurred in the early hours of Monday, at 04:17 am. local time, when most people were sleeping at home and unable to get to safety, a factor that experts say has led to a sharp rise in casualties.
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In the absence of official estimates in Turkey of the missing, some experts have made their own calculations that suggest that there are still tens of thousands of dead under the rubble.
Ahmet Ovgun Ercan, a prestigious geophysicist from Istanbul Technical University He estimated that there may still be 155,000 corpses under the ruins of the buildings. According to Ercan, his numbers come from a mathematical calculation that takes into account the number of collapsed buildings, the average number of apartments in each building, and the average number of people living in each home.
With these data he arrived at the figure of 264,000 people trapped under the ruins, from which he subtracted the death toll and the 80,000 wounded. The initial estimate is based on a calculation based on statistics that can give a large margin of error.
(Also: Turkey and Syria: ‘The war does not compare to what we are experiencing’)
The balance of the authorities
This Tuesday, precisely, the authorities updated the figures of injuries and deaths. In Turkey, the strong earthquakes have left at least 35,418 dead and 105,000 injured according to the latest government figureswhile survivors continue to be located among the remains of the tens of thousands of destroyed buildings.
Some 13,000 people are hospitalized, as explained by the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a new update of the disaster figures after a meeting of the Executive.
Survivors are still being located in the rubble, including a father and son found alive in the city of Hatay, after being trapped for 209 hours.
(Keep reading: Video: he spent 113 hours under rubble, in Turkey, and was able to meet his idol)
And in Syria, for the first time since 2020, An aid convoy entered rebel-held northern areas on Tuesday through the Bab al Salama border crossing with Turkey.
The convoy is made up of 11 humanitarian aid trucks from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a spokesman for the United Nations organization said in Geneva.
The UN Secretary General called for donations of almost 400 million dollars to meet the “immense needs” of the populations affected by the earthquake in Syria for “three months”.
“We all know that life-saving aid does not come at the necessary speed and scale,” he said.
(On other topics: Pamuk and Cilek, the pets rescued in Turkey after the earthquake: video)
We all know that life-saving aid does not come at the speed and scale necessary
Besidesthe economic cost of the catastrophe could amount to more than 84,000 million dollars, of which more than 70,000 million would correspond to housing, estimated the federation of Turkonfed companies.
The situation is also dire in neighboring Syria, already ravaged by more than a decade of civil war.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, isolated and subject to sanctions, has asked for international help to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, where the UN estimates that more than five million people have been left homeless.
Before the earthquake, almost all crucial humanitarian aid for the more than four million people living in the rebel-held areas of northwestern Syria came from a single border crossing.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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