“It’s clear from the calculations being done to date that the damage figure presented by the government and supported by…international partners would be in excess of $100 billion,” said the UNDP’s Louisa Vinton, by video link from Gaziantep.
More than 52,000 people were killed in Turkey and Syria by the Feb. 6 earthquakes, with many being crushed or buried in their sleep.
The provisional damage figure, which Vinton said covers just Turkey, is being used as a basis for a donor conference to mobilise funds for earthquake victims in Brussels, Belgium on March 16, she added.
The World Bank previously estimated the Turkey damage at around $34.2 billion.
Vinton described the scenes in Turkey’s worst-hit Hatay province as “apocalyptic”, saying hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed. “The needs are vast but the resources are scarce,” she added.
