A total of 23 European countries, including 20 Member States, have offered emergency assistance to Turkey in the wake of the earthquakes that struck the south of the country last Friday and have so far mobilized 36 rescue and medical teams, including more than 1,500 rescuers, the European Commission has reported in its latest assessment.
Through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, which coordinates emergency response, the EU-27 have extended their offer of assistance to 1,509 rescuers and 101 dogs specialized in these tasks.
A total of 20 EU Member States have mobilized resources: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain, as well as Montenegro, Albania and Serbia.
A team from the EU Civil Protection Mechanism has also been deployed on the ground to coordinate the rescue work, as confirmed by the Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, who stressed that all the aid sent by the bloc is perfectly coordinated from Brussels and in Turkey.
Ankara has expanded its demand for assistance to the EU to claim more protective equipment such as tents, warm clothes and heaters, a request that the EU-27 are already studying and that Brussels hopes can be met soon.
The death toll from Monday’s earthquakes in southern Turkey, near the Syrian border, has risen to more than 11,100, according to the balances published so far, which include more than 8,500 dead on Turkish territory.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said from the province of Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the earthquakes, that so far 8,574 people have been confirmed dead in what he described as «a great disaster».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
