Turkey raised to 46 thousand dead in earthquakes

He Turkish government rose to 45,968 the number of deaths from devastating earthquakes on February 6, and assured that he was not hiding information, after the College of Physicians said that there was still uncertainty about the actual number of victims.

“Whatever numbers we have, we will share with our nation”Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said last night in an update on the number of casualties in Hatay province, one of the hardest hit.

The minister denied that the actual number of dead was higher than the official one.

He Turkish College of Physicians Three weeks ago, when the official death toll was still 41,000, he said about 60,000 people had died in the quakes, but hinted that he would submit a comprehensive report.

The report, released yesterday, did not specify any total figure, but called for transparency and clarification from the authorities on identified and unidentified corpses.

“Uncertainty continues over the number of earthquake-related deaths”it is stated in that report, which states as an example that the official number of deaths in Kahramanmaras is about 6,000, while 11,000 burials were recorded in that municipality.

However, this discrepancy may be caused by the fact that not all figures have been published yet or that there are deceased who are buried in other regions than where they died.

Soylu said the dead included 4,235 Syrians who had been living as refugees in Turkey fleeing their country’s civil war.

He also assured that the Government is fighting disinformation and that the computer crime authorities and the prosecutor’s office have taken action against the administrators of 613 accounts on social networks, that 151 people have been arrested and 26 sent to prison.

The work to remove the ruins continues and 332 tent settlements have been created, housing 1.5 million victims of the earthquake.

In addition, the minister pointed out that more than two million people have left the affected areas where they lived.