Helping people of Türkiye in this tough time is our responsibility: PM Shehbaz Sharif

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday has chaired a Federal Cabinet meeting, during which the PM along with his party leaders has discussed the ongoing situation in Türkiye.

During the Federal Cabinet meeting, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has set up a relief fund to help earthquake victims in Türkiye. Noting to which, Federal Cabinet has unanimously finalized the decision to donate its one month salary to the earthquake victims in Türkiye.

In response to the deadly earthquake in Türkiye that has claimed over 7,800 lives, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the establishment of a relief fund to help victims.

After a plane load of relief goods and a rescue team from Pakistan reached Türkiye, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb took to Twitter and said: “To help the victims of the earthquake in Türkiye at this difficult hour, PM Shehbaz Sharif has decided to establish PM Relief Fund.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. But residents in several damaged Turkish cities voiced anger and despair at what they said was a slow and inadequate response from the authorities to the deadliest earthquake to hit Türkiye since 1999.

“There is not even a single person here. We are under the snow, without a home, without anything,” said Murat Alinak, whose home in Malatya had collapsed and whose relatives are missing. “What shall I do, where can I go?”

Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, followed hours later by a second one almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, injured tens of thousands, and left countless people homeless in Türkiye and northern Syria.
Türkiye has reported at least 5,894 deaths and 34,810 injuries. In government-controlled parts of Syria, at least 812 people were killed and 1,449 injured, according to state media. And civil-defense workers in the rebel-held northwest reported more than 1,220 deaths and 2,600 injuries.
Monday’s earthquake was followed by dozens of aftershocks, including an unusually powerful 7.5-magnitude quake. Erdogan announced a state of emergency in 10 provinces affected by the disaster.
People in northwest Syria were already in need of humanitarian aid, the United Nations said. Many of the more than 3 million Syrian refugees in Türkiye live in areas devastated by the quake.

One of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the region in a century rocked residents from their slumber in the early hours of Monday morning around 4 a.m. The quake struck 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Türkiye’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers (14.9 miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

A series of aftershocks reverberated through the region in the immediate hours after the initial incident. A magnitude 6.7 aftershock followed 11 minutes after the first quake hit, but the largest temblor, which measured 7.5 in magnitude, struck about nine hours later at 1:24 p.m., according to the USGS.

7.5 magnitude aftershock, which struck around 95 kilometers (59 miles) north of the initial quake, is the strongest of more than 100 aftershocks that have been recorded so far.

Rescuers are now racing against time and the elements to pull survivors out from under debris on both sides of the border. More than 5,700 buildings in Türkiye have collapsed, according to the country’s disaster agency.

Monday’s quake was also one of the strongest that Türkiye has experienced in the last century – a 7.8 magnitude quake hit the east of the country in 1939, which resulted in more than 30,000 deaths