Earthquake damage in Turkey will exceed $100 billion, UN says

Recovery costs ‘will obviously exceed that amount’ after ‘apocalyptic’ destruction last month, says UN official

Damage from the devastating earthquakes in Turkey will exceed $100 billion, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) official says ahead of a major donor conference next week.

“It is clear from the calculations made to date that the damage figure put forward by the government and supported by…international partners would exceed $100 billion,” Louisa Vinton of UNDP said at a news conference on Tuesday for video link from Gaziantep. a Turkish city that suffered severe damage in the earthquakes.

More than 52,000 people died in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria from the earthquakes on February 6. Many were crushed or buried in their sleep.

The provisional damage figure, which Vinton says covers Turkey only, is being used as the basis for a donors conference on March 16 in Brussels to raise money for survivors and reconstruction.

The World Bank earlier estimated direct damage to Turkey at $34.2 billion, but said recovery and reconstruction costs will be much higher and the losses in Turkey’s gross domestic product associated with economic disruptions caused by the earthquakes will also be higher. will be added to the cost.

‘Apocalyptic’ scenes

Vinton said the Turkish government, with the support of UNDP, the World Bank and the European Union, had calculated much more damage.

Once this estimate is complete, it will become the basis for the recovery and rebuild donor conference next week, he said.

Recovery costs, including building improved and more environmentally sustainable infrastructure, “will obviously exceed that amount,” he said.

Vinton described the scenes in Turkey’s hardest-hit Hatay province as “apocalyptic”, saying hundreds of thousands of homes had been destroyed. “The needs are enormous, but the resources are scarce,” he said.

About two million survivors have been housed in temporary accommodation or evacuated from the quake-ravaged region, according to Turkish government figures.

Some 1.5 million people are living in tents, while another 46,000 have been relocated to container houses. Others live in dormitories and guest houses, the government said.