Turkey

ANTAKYA, Turkey, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Turkey has stepped up plans to house victims of the devastating earthquake which struck its border region with Syria, the interior minister said, as the combined death toll in the two countries crept towards 50,000.

Suleyman Soylu said 313,000 tents had been erected, with 100,000 container homes to be installed in the disaster zone which stretches for hundreds of kilometres inland from the Turkish and Syrian Mediterranean coast.

22 Feb 2023; MEMO: In Hatay, Turkiye's southernmost province hit hard by the recent quakes, two generous brothers open the doors of their mansion to host quake victims and teams who work for their relief, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Salih Guzel and Emirhan Guzel mobilised all their means to turn their mansion, where their mother also lives, into a soup kitchen to serve people affected by the massive tremors with warm meal prepared by volunteer cooks.

22 Feb 2023; MEMO: Trucks, emergency vehicles and excavators lined the desolate streets of Turkiye's Antakya, Tuesday night, after the third major earthquake in two weeks accelerated an exodus from the once-lively city, Reuters reports.

In the pitch-black streets, passing headlights revealed mounds of rubble, frames of broken windows and entangled rebar. Red and blue flashing lights from military and police vehicles reflected off the jagged facades of slanted buildings.

ANKARA, Feb 22 (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan's government is inclined to hold Turkey's elections as scheduled in June, having cooled on the idea of postponing due to this month's devastating earthquake, three officials told Reuters on Wednesday.

Last month Erdogan, aiming to extend his rule into a third decade, said he was bringing the presidential and parliamentary votes forward to May to avoid holidays in June. Polls suggest they would be present his biggest electoral challenge yet.

21 Feb 2023; MEMO: Turkiye will start the construction of houses in quake-hit areas in March, the country's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said in the wake of two major earthquakes that jolted southern Turkiye on 6 February, Anadolu News Agency reports.

22 Feb 2023; MEMO: A Turkish newspaper has estimated that the reconstruction cost covering the ten provinces devastated by the recent earthquakes will be $45 billion. According to ekonomim, hundreds of thousands of residential and commercial buildings will have to be demolished and infrastructure such as roads and water, electricity and sewage networks will have to be repaired or replaced.

21 Feb 2023; MEMO: Havva Tuncay was living in a tent set up in the centre of the Turkish city of Antakya, when another earthquake hit on Monday night. She had been having trouble sleeping after the first shocks left Havva and her children homeless two weeks ago, Reuters reports.

"I cannot sleep at night. Is the same thing going to happen, are we going to experience another earthquake? We are very scared. I haven't slept for a week," she told Reuters outside her tent.

21 Feb 2023; MEMO: A 14th-century bazaar in Turkiye's south–eastern Kahramanmaras province, the epicentre of 6 February earthquakes, is one of the several historical structures damaged due to strong tremors in the city, Anadolu News Agency reports.

The historical Maras Grand Bazaar, consisting of nine entrances and 495 shops, was built in the 1500s by the Bozkurt of Dulkadir, or Alauddevle, – the chief of Turkish principality in Anatolia.

ANKARA, February 21. /TASS/: The death toll from devastating earthquakes in Turkey has climbed to 42,310, Turkey’s Emergency Management Agency (AFAD) said on Tuesday.

"According to the latest data, the death toll from the earthquakes that rocked the Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Diyarbakir, Adana, Adiyaman, Osmaniye, Hatay, Kilis, Malatya, and Elazig has reached 42,310. As many as 448,000 people have been evacuated from the disaster area," it said.

According to AFAD, more than 7,000 aftershocks have been registered since the first powerful quake on February 6.

ISTANBUL, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- The major twin earthquakes that struck southern Türkiye on Feb. 6 have raised serious concerns about the country's agricultural capacity as the 10 hardest-hit provinces are home to about 3.58 million hectares of agricultural land, or 15 percent of the nation's total.