The death toll from the devastating earthquake that hit the city of Turkey And Syria.

In a speech today in the city of Sanliurfa, Tayyip Erdogan said the death toll in the country is 21,848, with more than 80,000 injured.

In Syria, the death toll in government and rebel-controlled areas has risen to 3,553.

The Turkish President stressed that the government would take action against those involved in looting and other crimes in the areas affected by the earthquake. He also stated that hundreds of thousands of buildings in southern Turkey are uninhabitable and that the authorities will soon begin the process of restoration. “We have planned to restore hundreds of thousands of buildings,” he said, adding: “We will start taking concrete steps in a few weeks.”

The Turkish president’s statements about the looting were preceded by an Austrian decision to suspend rescue operations due to the deteriorating “security situation,” a spokesman for the unit said. “There have been clashes between the factions,” he told the French news agency AFP, without elaborating.

They disapprove of Erdogan’s ministers and deputies

Erdogan’s ministers and MPs have faced the wrath of citizens living through the dramatic aftermath of last Monday’s deadly earthquake. As can be seen from the videos posted on Twitter, citizens express disapproval when officials visit the affected areas, expressing their outrage and desperation.

📌Diyarbakir MP from the AKP Oya Eronat arrived at the earthquake zone in Diyarbakir, citizens were forced to leave the region in protest. pic.twitter.com/BwM6ZTCgnd

— 23 DERES (@yirmiucderece) February 11, 2023

📌Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdag, where he went to the earthquake in Diyarbakir, was attacked by yurts. pic.twitter.com/ZXzSDzu6lB

— 23 DERES (@yirmiucderece) February 10, 2023

Turkey: 12 people from the construction industry arrested

Twelve people from the construction industry have been arrested in Turkey after thousands of buildings collapsed in the country’s south, local media reported on Saturday.

Among those arrested were a businessman from Gaziantep province and eleven people from Sanlıurfa province, according to Turkish news agency DHA.

The complete collapse of the buildings, revealing their poor construction and leaving little to no chance for their occupants, is causing outrage in the country, where some 22,000 people have died and more than 80,000 have been injured.

More arrests are expected after the public prosecutor of Diyarbakır, one of the ten provinces hit by the disaster, announced today that 29 arrest warrants have been issued, the official Anadolu news agency reported.

According to this source, one of those arrested is a businessman who built houses in Gaziantep and was arrested in Istanbul.

The prosecutor’s office launched several investigations in the affected provinces, such as Kahramanmaras, where the city of Pazardzhik was at the epicenter of the earthquake.

The Turkish Ministry of Justice has instructed ten provincial prosecutors to set up “earthquake-related crime investigation departments.”

On Friday, police arrested a businessman from Hatay Province at Istanbul Airport, whose palatial residence had completely collapsed, overwhelming its occupants.

Rescuers are still recovering survivors from the rubble.

Authorities said rescuers in Turkey pulled two women alive from the rubble of damaged buildings where they had been trapped for 122 hours after Monday’s deadly earthquake.

One of the survivors, 70-year-old Menexe Tabak, was found in a damaged building in Kahramanmaras province and taken to hospital, Anadolu news agency reported. The agency added that in Diyarbakir, 55-year-old Mashalah Cicek was pulled out from under the rubble of a building with injuries.

She turned out to be a 40-year-old woman who was released yesterday.

Meanwhile, a woman died a day after she was pulled from the rubble of a house in southern Turkey where she had been trapped for 104 hours, rescuers said.

On Friday, German rescuers pulled Zeynep Kahraman, 40, from the rubble of an apartment building in the southern Turkish town of Kirihan. “We have just been informed by brother and sister Zeynep that she unfortunately passed away in the hospital,” said Steven Bayer, head of the German International Search and Rescue Team.

The team doctor said that some rescuers fight back tears and comfort each other, so the risk is very high in the first 48 hours after such a difficult rescue.

UN: This is the worst event in recent history of the region

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths today urged the global community to remember the thousands of people in need of shelter and food as rescuers search for survivors of Monday’s earthquake in southern Turkey and northwest Syria.

Speaking at a press briefing in Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province during rescue work, Griffiths said he was talking to families who were displaced and left in the cold without food after the earthquake.

“I am here to make sure these people are not forgotten,” he told reporters.

Griffiths praised Turkey’s response to the disaster as “extraordinary” and applauded the “courage of rescuers who are working around the clock, hoping to hear another sound, another survivor.”

“This is just the beginning, and my experience is that people are always disappointed at first,” he said, clearly referring to criticism of the authorities’ response to the earthquake.

According to him, what happened in the area of ​​the epicenter of the earthquake, “the worst event in the last 100 years in the region.” OUR The earthquake on Monday was the strongest in Turkey since 1939.

Syria’s 11-year civil war, which left hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless, remains the deadliest in the region’s recent history.

As Griffiths said, launches a three-month operation for both Turkey and Syria to help cover the cost of operations there.

He told Reuters he hoped aid in Syria would be spread across both government-held areas and opposition-held territory, but noted that at that level, things were “still not clear.”

Rescuers in opposition-controlled areas have criticized the United Nations and the international community for their lack of response after the earthquake.

Border with Armenia reopens after 35 years

The border between Turkey and Armenia was opened today for the first time in 35 years, according to AFP and Anadolu news agencies, to deliver humanitarian aid to people affected by Monday’s massive earthquakes in southern Turkey.

Five trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Armenia crossed the border at the Alikan border crossing in Igdir province in eastern Turkey.

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan shared a video of trucks driving over a bridge to Turkey.

“Humanitarian aid from Armenia crossed the Margara Bridge on the Armenian-Turkish border and headed to the area affected by the earthquake,” Kostanyan wrote on Twitter.

Turkey’s Special Representative for Steps to Normalize Relations with Armenia Serdar Kilic thanked Armenia on Twitter for its help.

“Thank you, dear Vahan Kostanyan, thank you, dear Ruben Rubinyan, for the good deeds,” Kilic said. “I will always remember the generous assistance sent by the people of Armenia to alleviate the suffering of our people in the earthquake-affected region of Turkey.”