Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared a three-month-long emergency across ten provinces ravaged by the earthquake which has killed more than 3,500 people alone in the country.
“We have decided to declare a state of emergency to ensure that our (rescue and recovery) work can be carried out quickly,” Erdogan said in a televised address.
“We are declaring ten cities impacted by the earthquake disaster zone”, the Turkish president said, adding that the death toll had risen to 3,549.
Noting that 70 countries had offered help in search and rescue operations, Erdogan announced that the government planned to open up hotels in Antalya to temporarily house people affected by the earthquakes, Reuters reported.
According to the Turkish authorities, some 1.35 crore people were affected in the area which spanned 450 kilometres from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east and from Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south.
