Türkiye says over 232,000 buildings damaged or to be demolished in quake-hit region

By Utku Simsek

MALATYA, Türkiye (AA) – More than 232,000 buildings were severely damaged or should be demolished immediately in southern Türkiye after powerful tremors struck the region on Feb. 6, the country’s environment minister said on Tuesday.

“We have determined that 232,632 buildings, including 651,416 independent sections, were severely damaged or will be immediately demolished or due to quakes,” Murat Kurum said at a meeting in the southeastern Malatya province.

Kurum said they examined more than 1.7 million buildings composed of over 5.7 million independent sections in the quake-hit provinces.

The damage assessment was completed in Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Adiyaman, Osmaniye, and Kilis provinces, he added.

"We started the process of constructing disaster houses as part of the biggest disaster housing construction campaign in the history of the Turkish Republic ... We will build a total of 66,230 houses and 21,549 village houses in Malatya,” he elaborated.

In the light of science, the authorities designate the right place with experts and local governments and start the construction process, he added.

The construction of 27,849 houses in the region will start by March 9, Kurum said, adding, they will commence the construction of 309,000 houses in all quake-hit provinces in the next two months.

More than 46,100 people have been killed in the back-to-back earthquakes that struck southern and southeastern Türkiye on Feb. 6.

The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes, centered in Kahramanmaras, rocked 10 other provinces – Hatay, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakir, Kilis, Osmaniye, Sanliurfa, and Elazig. Around 13.5 million people in Türkiye have been affected as well as many others in northwestern Syria.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar