Turkish president pledges to rebuild quake-hit region

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) — Türkiye's president vowed on Monday to rebuild the country's southern region, hit last month by powerful earthquakes that claimed the lives of more than 46,104 people.

"Today, as we leave behind the fourth week since the earthquakes, we more clearly see the magnitude of the disaster we experienced and feel the pain of our losses more deeply," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara.

On Feb. 6, the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes struck 11 provinces — Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa. More than 13.5 million people in Türkiye have been affected by the devastating quakes, as well as many others in northwestern Syria.

"Our aim is to start the construction of 244,000 houses and 75,000 village homes in the next two months," Erdogan said, adding that the construction of 22,000 of these had already begun.

A total of 488,000 new homes will be built for disaster victims in the quake-hit areas within a year, he said.

The president also said that 100,000 containers would be set up within two months in the region for 500,000 earthquake victims to live in better conditions.