On Saturday, Griffiths visited the city of Kahramanmaraş in Turkey, the epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that occurred on Monday and caused 28,191 deaths, including 24,617 in this country and 3,574 in neighboring Syria.
Speaking to Sky News, Griffiths said: “I think it’s difficult to accurately assess the toll because we have to see under the rubble, but I’m sure it will double or more,” adding, “We haven’t actually started counting the dead yet.”
On Saturday, Griffiths stated, in a video posted on his Twitter account, that “the people assigned to search and relief operations will soon give way to humanitarian agencies, whose work will require attention to the exceptional number of affected people during the coming months.”
Rescue operations continue
- Rescue teams continue to search through the rubble in the bitter cold.
- The earthquake displaced up to 5.3 million people in Syria alone.
- The United Nations has warned that at least 780 people are in urgent need of meals in the two countries.
- The World Health Organization announced on Saturday that the number of people affected by the earthquake has reached about 26 million, and launched an appeal to collect $42.8 million to fund urgent health needs.
- The World Health Organization estimates that more than 4,000 buildings collapsed in the earthquake.
- In Syria, where the health system is crumbling as a result of a war that began in 2011, at least 20 health facilities in the northwest of the country, including 4 hospitals, have been damaged.
- The World Health Organization airlifted 37 metric tons of emergency trauma and surgical supplies to Turkey on Thursday, and delivered 35 metric tons to Syria on Friday.
- These life-saving supplies will be used to treat 100,000 people as well as perform 120,000 emergency surgeries in both countries.
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