The days pass and the number of deceased people increases unfortunately. The death toll from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6 has exceeded 41,000, official and medical sources announced on Thursday.
While the chances of finding survivors are dwindling, the total is now 41,732 people who have lost their lives: 38,044 in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria.
Turkish rescuers pulled a 17-year-old girl and a woman in her twenties out of the rubble on Thursday, nearly eleven days after the quake that devastated the border area between the two countries. But Turkey has suspended rescue operations in some areas and the government of Syria, a country torn by war for 12 years, has done the same in areas it controls.
In Turkey, the toll of the earthquake makes it the deadliest natural disaster in the country’s post-Ottoman history.