The earthquake in Turkey and Syria has been called “the worst natural disaster in Europe in a century” by the WHO.

The World Health Organization called the February 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria “the worst natural disaster in a century in Europe”, which killed more than 50,000 people.

One month after the earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, followed by several tremors, including one with a magnitude of 7.6, millions of Turks are suffering from the consequences of a natural disaster, namely: cities in ruins, people living in tents , and others are still looking for their relatives.

According to partial reports, the quake killed nearly 46,000 people and injured 105,000 people in Turkey.

It also demolished or demolished 214,000 buildings, sometimes over 10 stories high, in 11 of Turkey’s 81 provinces. According to the authorities of this country, about 6,000 people also died in Syria.

Turkish cities in the provinces of Kahramanmaras – near the epicenter – and Hatay on the Syrian border were devastated, forcing the authorities to hastily bury thousands of people in makeshift cemeteries in fields and forests.

Turkish authorities estimate that 14 million people, or one sixth of the population, were affected by the earthquake.

According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, about 3.3 million people were forced to leave the affected areas. Nearly two million people currently live in tents or containers.

More than 13,000 aftershocks were recorded in a month, supporting panic in a country located in one of the most active seismic zones in the world.

President Erdogan acknowledged the delays, blamed “the devastating aftershocks and bad weather” and apologized to the survivors.

Several legal cases were brought against 997 people involved in the construction of buildings that collapsed after the earthquake, and 247 of them were arrested, including several people who tried to flee Turkey.

The devastating earthquake and its aftershocks have caused more than $34 billion (€32 billion), or 4% of Turkey’s gross domestic product (GDP), in damages, according to the World Bank at the end of February.

Erdogan promised to build more than 450,000 houses with anti-seismic standards “within a year” and announced a payment of 100,000 Turkish liras (about 5,000 euros) to the families of those killed in the tragedy.

Nearly a million people affected by the earthquake have already received £10,000 or €500,000 in aid, the Turkish head of state said on Wednesday.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), more than 850,000 children remain displaced after being forced out of damaged or destroyed homes in Turkey and Syria.

For Turkey, UNICEF launched a $196 million (€184.3 million) appeal to support three million people, including 1.5 million children. For Syria, the Fund requires US$172.7 million (€162.6 million) to provide immediate life-saving assistance to 5.4 million people, including 2.6 million children.

In Syria, earthquakes have exacerbated the humanitarian situation in the country, where affected families face growing poverty and international aid remains inadequate a month after the disaster, several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) warned on Monday.

Even before Feb. 6, many minors were at risk of dropping out of school due to the effects of almost a twelve-year war and the severe economic crisis that Syria is experiencing, where about 90% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to UN data.

“There is a real risk that, without additional support, more children will drop out of school because their families will have to make a difficult decision: send them to work or choose child marriage,” warned Katherine Achilles of the NGO Save the Children. .

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned in a statement that funding to help victims in Syria is “insufficient” to cover their “urgent” needs, as the UN has received less than half of the $400 million needed and donations to NGOs are “slow and inadequate”. “.

In the case of the northwestern regions of the country, which are in the hands of the opposition, the delivery of humanitarian aid was surrounded by controversy from the very beginning, as the region received its first UN convoy only four days after the earthquake. .

For the head of the Middle East Refugees International, Jesse Marks, the response in these areas of the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo still represents an “unacceptable failure” a month after the earthquake.