While visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered $100 million in further humanitarian help, Türkiye reported, that all but two of the districts where rescue attempts had been ongoing since last week's deadly earthquake had been reached.
More than 45,000 people have died as a result of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that slammed southeast Turkey and northern Syria on February 6. Finding survivors two weeks later is exceedingly unlikely.
On the fourteenth day, they were still going on at about 40 buildings in the provinces, according to Sezer, but he anticipated that by late Sunday, the number will decrease. The agency's director also reported that 40,689 people have died in Türkiye.
On Sunday, Yunus Sezer, the chairman of Turkey's disaster service, declared that all provinces had finished their search and rescue operations, with the exception of Hatay and Kahramanmaras, which were the epicenter of the earthquake. Blinken also spoke with members of the White Helmets rescue organization, which works in Syrian regions controlled by rebels, about the aid effort there.
Regrettably, the focus of the new assistance is long-term recuperation rather than search and rescue, Blinken told reporters. "This is going to be a long-term effort. It's going to take a massive effort to rebuild but we're committed to supporting that effort," he said.
He stated that America has now given Turkey and Syria assistance totaling US$185 million. Before the earthquake, the largest natural calamity to ever hit Turkey after the Ottoman Empire, the tour had been organized.
On Twitter, Blinken mentioned their encounter and added: "Thank you for your heroic efforts to rescue Syrians after the earthquakes."
Blinken's first trip to Turkey since taking office in 2021 was planned to include meetings with those in charge of arranging for the delivery of US help as well as a visit to the Hatay humanitarian operation. Notwithstanding the deteriorated ties between the U.S. and Turkey in previous years, after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine last year, Washington has come to see Ankara as useful for its mediation efforts between Russia and Ukraine.
On Monday, Blinken will meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Turkish capital of Ankara. Two topics are likely to be at the top of the discussion list. Due to worries about Turkey's human rights record and threats against its neighbor Greece, the U.S. Congress has prohibited the sale of F-16 fighter fighters to Turkey. Blinken will probably also bring up Turkey's denial of Turkey's ratification of Sweden's and Finland's applications for NATO membership.
