In the wake of an ongoing controversy about the true death toll of two powerful earthquakes that hit Turkey last year, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya has said 53,537 people in Turkey had died in the earthquakes, revising a previous figure of 50,783.
The magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 earthquakes affected 11 provinces in the country’s south and southeast on February 6, killing close to 60,000 people in Turkey and parts of Syria and leaving millions homeless.
A total of 107,213 people in Turkey were injured in the earthquakes, according to the minister, who released the updated figures on the eve of the anniversary of the disaster during a press briefing at Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) headquarters in Ankara on Friday.
The previous death toll of 50,783 was announced by former Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on April 22.
Yerlikaya’s statement came in the wake of a new debate about the true death toll of the quakes as Murat Kurum, the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) mayoral candidate for İstanbul, also a former minister, said on live television on Wednesday that Turkey had lost 130,000 people while talking about the city’s earthquake preparedness and the major tremors in February.
His remarks were followed by a flurry of criticism on social media over what many saw as a momentary lapse in which a government official blurted out the actual death toll from the February earthquakes as opposed to the official figure, which some believe was minimized to downplay the scale of the disaster ahead of the May elections, which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan narrowly won.
Kurum later said the figure he mentioned did not refer to the earthquakes on February 6, but to the approximate total number of people who have died in earthquakes in the history of the Republic of Turkey.
Yerlikaya also said 14 million people were affected by the earthquakes last February.
Around 38,901 buildings were destroyed by the quakes, he said, adding that Turkey has set up 215,224 metal containers to house 691,000 survivors who have lost their homes and been unable to find new accommodations on their own.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will travel to Hatay on Saturday, one of the hardest-hit cities in the earthquakes, and will attend the handover ceremony of 41,000 apartments and 5,000 village houses built for the earthquake victims, said the minister.
Erdoğa promised in March 2023 to have built 650,000 residences built in one year for the earthquake victims and “heal the wounds” caused by the earthquakes quickly. Many approached Erdoğan’s remarks with suspicion and found his promise unrealistic, given the fact that even removing the rubble from the buildings would take months and that Turkey’s economic situation and human resources are insufficient to complete such a project in one year.
Media reports show that many earthquake victims still live in tents despite harsh weather conditions and have difficulty in accessing basic needs such as clean water.
