Omer Faruk Cebeci
02 March 2023•Update: 02 March 2023
HATAY, Türkiye
The UN will continue to support Türkiye following the Feb. 6 twin earthquakes, a UN official said on Thursday.
“You must remember that Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations. So we've been here since that time and we will continue to be here as long as we have support to the Turkish Government and people,” UN Resident Coordinator in Türkiye Alvaro Rodriguez told Anadolu.
Rodriguez visited the tent city established in a stadium in the southern Hatay province.
“We already know that we have eight and in fact there will be a ninth hospital that will be coming here."
He said the UN activities in the province include search and rescue efforts, humanitarian response such as providing food and medicine as well as is recovery and reconstruction.
“Now we hope that the second phase is humanitarian phase (that) will last roughly three months.
“Then we start another phase which is the recovery and reconstruction. And there are other agencies of the UN will be involved the agencies that actually focus on livelihoods, focus on reconstruction, focus on environment, for example, so that we can restore the economy of the 11 provinces affected.”
On Feb. 6, two powerful earthquakes – magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 – struck southern Türkiye.
The massive tremors, centered in Kahramanmaras province, also shook 10 other provinces – Hatay, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakir, Kilis, Osmaniye, Sanliurfa, and Elazig.
More than 45,000 people were killed in the earthquakes in Türkiye and some 13.5 million people have been affected, with thousands of buildings collapsing in its wake.
