Louisa Vinton of the UN Development Program describes scenes in Turkey’s worst-hit southern Hatay province as ‘apocalyptic’
Damage from the catastrophic earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria last month is expected to exceed $100 billion for the Turkish state alone, the United Nations said Tuesday ahead of a major donor conference next week.
“It’s clear from the calculations… that the damage figure presented by the government and supported by international partners would be in excess of $100 billion,” said Louisa Vinton of the UN Development Program (UNDP).
Recovery costs, including efforts to build improved and more environmentally sustainable infrastructure, “will obviously exceed that amount,” she added.
More than 52,000 people died in Turkey and Syria after the 7.8-magnitude quake hit the region on February 6, with many being crushed or buried in their sleep. Vinton described the scenes in Turkey’s worst-hit southern Hatay province as “apocalyptic,” saying hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed.
“The needs are vast but the resources are scarce,” she urged.
The World Bank estimated last week that the disaster caused damage worth more than $34 billion in Turkey, but Vinton said Ankara – with support from UNDP, the World Bank, and the European Union – calculated far higher damage.
Once completed, the provisional damage figure will be used as the basis for a recovery and reconstruction donor conference in Brussels on March 16 to mobilize funds for quake victims.
So far, Vinton said, UNDP was “very disappointed and saddened” by the low level of response to funding appeals to date. A $1 billion flash appeal made on February 16 was currently funded at just 9.6 percent of the total, she noted.
