ISTANBUL – Five Syrian children and their parents died today in a fire that struck a Turkish home they moved to after surviving last week’s earthquake, local media reported.
The family had relocated to the central region of Konya from the southeastern Turkish city of Nurdagi, which was badly hit by the February 6 quake, to stay with relatives.
The death toll from the 7.8-magnitude quake that hit southeastern Turkiye and Syria has crossed 41,000 – the deadliest natural disaster in the region in centuries.
The Anadolu state news agency said the five children were aged between four and 13.
“We saw the fire but we could not intervene. A girl was rescued from the window,” local resident Muhsin Cakir told Anadolu.
The 11 Turkish regions hit by the quake and its nearly 5,000 aftershocks are home to more than 1.74 million refugees, according to the United Nations.
Turkiye is home to nearly four million Syrians in all.
Mazen Allouch, an official on the Syrian side of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkiye, told AFP today that the bodies of 1,528 Syrians killed in the quake have been repatriated home so far.
Officials and medics said 38,044 people had died in Turkiye and 3,688 in Syria, bringing the confirmed total to 41,732. – AFP, February 17, 2023
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