Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll hits 12,000

As of Wednesday, 12,000 people had died as a result of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, and rescue efforts are still ongoing.

On February 7, a string of enormous quakes of magnitudes 7.8 and 7.5 shook southeast Turkey close to the Syrian border.

Corpses that cannot be identified will be buried within five days, according to the disaster management organization AFAD.

The agency disclosed that such victims would be buried following DNA analyses, fingerprinting, and photography for identification purposes.

Turkish President Recep Erdogan said there were shortcomings in the first reaction to the tragedy during his visit to “tent city” in Kahramanmaras.

Speech by the president of Turkey

No one would “be abandoned in the streets,” the President said, and he declared that the issues were now “under control”.

Erdogan is the only one to blame for this, according to Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of Turkey’s largest opposition party.

More than twenty nations’ worth of aid workers have joined the tens of thousands of people already present in the earthquake zone.

A newborn infant who was the only member of her family to survive was discovered in northern Syria still linked to her deceased mother.