Turkish envoy to India Firat Sunel thanked India for sending relief and aid materials to his country which is recovering from the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck on February 6.
Sunel said every tent and blanket that India is sending Turkey is vital for those who have survived the earthquake.
“Each tent, each blanket or sleeping bag are of vital importance for the hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors. Thank you, India,” Sunel tweeted. He also pointed out, in a separate tweet, that planes carrying aid from India have been reaching Turkey on a daily basis.
India sent the seventh flight carrying relief materials to quake-hit Syria under Operation Dost on Sunday which reached Damascus carrying over 23 tons of relief material.
THANK YOU INDIA! 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳Each tent, each blanket or sleeping bag are of vital importance for the hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors. https://t.co/v9rsXtdzjL— Fırat Sunel फिरात सुनेल فرات صونال (@firatsunel) February 13, 2023
Sunel last week said that Operation Dost - India’s rescue and aid mission for quake-hit Turkey and Syria - shows the deep ties between Istanbul and New Delhi.
“This swift reaction from the Indian side is very, very important, because it’s a matter of life and death, and we really appreciate very much the contribution and support from the Indian side,” Sunel said, hours after the first aid shipment left for Turkey’s Adana.
The earthquake that struck Turkey on Monday was the fifth deadliest since the start of the 21st century. At the time of writing this report, the confirmed death toll in Turkey rose to 31,643 and 3,581 in Syria, bringing the total combined death toll to 35,224.
Turkish vice president Fuat Oktay said 108,000 buildings were damaged in southern Turkey, where the quake struck. He said 1.2 million people are now being housed in student accommodation and 400,000 people were evacuated from the cities that sustained major damages due to the temblor.
In Kahramanmaras, which is close to the epicentre of the earthquake, people have been housed in 30,000 tents. There are 48,000 people who have taken shelter in schools and some 11,500 people have been kept in sports halls, Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu told news agency AFP.
Meanwhile, the crisis has exacerbated for those living in rebel-held areas of Syria. Even though Syrian President Bashar al-Assad signalled he is “open” to the idea of opening more border crossings when he spoke with WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Currently, the Bab al-Hawa is the only point for international aid to reach people in rebel-held areas of Syria. The UN’s relief chief Martin Griffiths lamented that the organisation has failed the people of Syria.
“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” Griffiths said in a tweet.
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