Turkey's Erdoğan Pledges Swift Earthquake Recovery

President Recep Erdoğan has renewed pledges for a swift recovery from the earthquake in Turkey.

He highlighted the recovery process in provinces hit by the February 6 earthquakes while addressing the parliamentary group meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) on Wednesday.

Erdoğan said although the earthquakes came at a time of harsh winter, authorities managed to respond in time and ministers were on the ground within hours to coordinate search and rescue operations.

He added that over 35,000 search and rescue teams responded to the earthquakes while almost half a million people, from volunteers and public officials, rushed to the aid of earthquake survivors.

He said in a statement; “We mobilized all resources but the devastation was enormous and it was impossible to simultaneously reach out to everyone in affected areas even if we would be able to dispatch at least one search and rescue worker for every building.

"Still, Türkiye managed to assemble the largest search and rescue team after this disaster."

“We share everyone's pain and we will keep our arms and hearts open for them,” he added.

Touching on the rebuilding process, the president noted that they were already providing aid for accommodation to about 1.4 million people before their relocation to their new houses.