The Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) says search and rescue operations have ended in most provinces nearly two weeks after this month’s devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

“The death toll due to the earthquakes rose to 40,642, and the work of searching and rescue for people stuck under the debris has ended in most of the provinces,” Yunis Sezar, head of AFAD, said in a presser on Saturday.

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“We believe we will end the search and rescue operations by tomorrow night,” he added.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey’s southeast and neighbouring Syria on February 6, killing more than 45,000 people and leaving more than a million people homeless along with an economic cost expected to run into billions of dollars.

“We are in front of perhaps the biggest disaster we have faced in history. The damage from the earthquakes and the aftershocks – that were more than 5,700 – were not only restricted to the affected 11 provinces,” Sezar said.

In Syria, more than 5,800 deaths have been reported, mostly in the northwest. The figure has not changed for several days.

The World Health Organization estimates that some 26 million people across both Turkey and Syria need humanitarian aid. 

Another ‘miracle’ rescue

Twelve days after the earthquakes, rescue workers from Kyrgyzstan saved several members of a Syrian family of five on Saturday from the rubble of a building in Antakya in southern Turkey.