ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is paying his second visit to provinces that have been devastated by the Feb. 6 earthquake as the search and rescue efforts for buried survivors in the worst disaster in modern Turkish history are winding down.
Here’s a look at the key developments Monday in the quake's aftermath:
DEATH TOLL EDGES TOWARD 45,000
The Turkish disaster management agency, AFAD, has raised the number of confirmed fatalities from the earthquake in Turkey to 41,156. That increases the overall death toll in both Turkey and Syria to 44,844.
Search and rescue operations for survivors have been called off in most of the quake zone, but AFAD chief Yunus Sezer told reporters that search teams were pressing ahead with their efforts in more than a dozen collapsed buildings - most of them in the hardest-hit province of Hatay.
There were no signs of anyone being alive under the rubble since three members of one family — a mother, father and 12-year-old boy — were extracted from a collapsed building in Hatay on Saturday. The boy later died.
BLINKEN PRAISES AMERICANS’ RESPONSE
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has praised the support provided by Americans following the earthquake.
In a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Blinken said Monday the U.S. government had responded “within hours” to the disaster and had so far sent hundreds of personnel and relief supplies. But he said that ordinary Americans had also responded to “heartbreaking” images from the quake zone.
“We have nearly $80 million in donations from the private sector in the United States, (from) individuals. When I visited the Turkish Embassy in Washington, I almost couldn’t get in the front door because boxes were piled high throughout the driveway to the embassy,” Blinken said.
NATO SENDS CONTAINER HOMES
NATO says a ship carrying 600 temporary container homes has left Italy and is expected to arrive in Turkey next week.
The defense alliance has pledged to send more than 1,000 containers that will serve as temporary shelters for at least 4,000 people left homeless by the earthquake.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, who visited the quake-devastated region last week, called it the worst disaster in the alliance’s history.
Authorities say more than 110,000 buildings across 11 quake-hit Turkish provinces were either destroyed or so severely damaged that they need to be torn down.