Union Agencies (Ankara)
A donation campaign called “Turkey is One Heart” has raised more than $6 billion within seven hours for the earthquake-affected people, according to state media reports yesterday.
Yesterday, 213 television stations and 562 radio stations inside and outside Turkey broadcast a joint campaign, in which Turkish celebrities participated in presenting the campaign live. The campaign, which was broadcast by channels and radio stations in Turkey and neighboring countries, received wide support from businessmen, companies, politicians, athletes and actors.
Over the course of seven hours of live broadcasting, the campaign received large donations amounting to 115 billion and 146 million and 528 thousand Turkish liras (about $6.1 billion).
In a phone call, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced his support for the campaign with one million euros, expressing his sincere condolences to the Turkish government and people. He added, “We are ready to harness our capabilities to support the Turkish people, and I announce, on behalf of the Albanian people, a donation of one million euros to the earthquake victims.” In a telephone conversation, during the launch of the campaign, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country aims to construct new and safe buildings within one year, at the site of every building destroyed in the double earthquake. He added, “As of the beginning of next March, we will lay the foundation stone for 30,000 housing units, and thus we will have begun the reconstruction of the demolished areas.”
This comes, while rescuers pulled a girl alive from under the rubble in Turkey, yesterday, more than ten days after the devastating earthquake that struck the region, killing more than 42,000 people in Turkey and Syria, while families are waiting to know the fate of their missing relatives.
TRT News reported that a 17-year-old girl was rescued in Kahramanmaraş province in southeastern Turkey, 248 hours after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake occurred in the dead of night on February 6.
Footage showed rescuers carrying her on a stretcher to an ambulance. The authorities said that the number of people killed in the worst earthquake to hit Turkey in its modern history rose to 36,187. In Syria, where the earthquake added to the humanitarian crisis due to the war that has been going on for more than 11 years, the number of deaths recorded so far has reached 5,800, a number that has not changed significantly in previous days.
Although a number of survivors were found in Turkey yesterday, reports of similar rescues are far between. The authorities in Turkey and Syria have not announced the number of people still missing.
Millions of people are in need of humanitarian aid after being left homeless in the bitter cold of winter.
In Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, a picture of two missing boys hung on a tree near the apartment building in which they lived.
“Their parents are dead,” said Bayram Najjar, a survivor of the quake, as he waited with other residents wearing masks as a digger lifted a huge pile of smashed concrete and twisted iron bars behind the tree.
He said that the bodies of the parents are under the rubble, adding: “The father was called Attila, and we have not found his body yet, and we hope to find the parents after the diggers remove the rubble.”
The Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD) said that more than 4,300 aftershocks have hit the affected area since the quake.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that as of yesterday, 119 UN trucks have passed through the Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam crossings since the earthquake to help those affected by the earthquake in northeastern Syria. The aid includes food, basic medicines, tents and other rations, and tests for cholera, which is still raging in the area.
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