A month after a powerful earthquake devastated parts of turkeys And SyriaHundreds of thousands of people are still in need of adequate shelter and sanitation, and a USD 1 billion appeal to help survivors is only 10 percent funded, a UN official said on Monday, making it difficult to deal with the humanitarian crisis. Efforts are being hampered.
The February 6 earthquake and powerful aftershocks killed nearly 47,000 people in Turkey, destroyed or damaged nearly 214,000 buildings, and left hundreds of thousands homeless, making it the worst earthquake in Turkey’s modern history. Bad became a disaster.
The United Nations estimates that the earthquake killed around 6,000 people in Syria, mainly in the rebel-held northwest.
According to Turkish government data, about 2 million survivors have been placed in temporary housing or evacuated from the earthquake-ravaged area.
About 1.5 million people have been resettled in tents while another 46,000 have been moved to container homes. Others are staying in dormitories and guesthouses, the government said.
“Given the number of people who have been moved, the number of people injured and the scale of the devastation, we now have enormous humanitarian needs,” Alvaro Rodriguez, the UN Resident Coordinator in Turkey, told The Associated Press. Press.
“We have some provinces where up to 25 percent of the population, we are talking of half a million people sometimes, have moved. So the challenge before us is how do we provide food, shelter, water for these communities? Do it,” he said. ,
The UN representative said that tents are still needed, although they are not the “optimal solution” to shelter people. They reported a few cases of scabies outbreaks due to poor sanitary conditions.
Last month, the United Nations appealed for US$397.6 million to help Syrian earthquake victims and US$1 billion to meet emergency needs such as food, security, education, water and shelter for three months for victims in Turkey It was Rodriguez said the appeal for Turkey is only 10 percent funded.
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“The reality is that if we do not grow beyond the roughly 10 percent that we have, the United Nations and its partners will not be able to meet humanitarian needs,” he said.
Rodriguez said: “Turkey has been a country that has supported 4 million Syrian refugees in the past few years, and this is an opportunity for the international community to provide support to Turkey.”
The World Bank estimated that the earthquake caused an estimated USD 34.2 billion in direct material damage – equivalent to 4 percent of Turkey’s 2021 GDP. The World Bank stated that the cost of recovery and reconstruction would be enormous and that GDP losses associated with economic disruptions would also add to the cost of the earthquake.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces tough presidential and parliamentary elections in May, has promised to rebuild hundreds of thousands of homes for earthquake survivors within a year.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, more than 1.74 million refugees lived in the 11 Turkish provinces affected by the earthquake. Turkey’s interior minister said that 4,267 of those killed in Turkey were Syrian citizens.
Rodriguez said about 40,000 Syrian families in Turkey have returned home to check economic assets such as land or housing that could be affected by the earthquake there.
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