Turkey-Syria Earthquake: Over 2,600 killed in earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
Dubai:
The United Arab Emirates on Monday pledged about $13.6 million in humanitarian aid to Syria after an earthquake in Turkey that killed at least 1,000 people in the war-torn country, state media reported.
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep before dawn on Monday, killing more than 1,651 people in Turkey and more than 1,000 in neighboring Syria.
State news agency WAM said Emirati Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum “directed immediate humanitarian assistance to those affected in Syria.”
It added that the value of the aid is 50 million dirhams.
Countries around the world are rapidly mobilizing to send aid and rescue personnel to the affected areas.
WAM said the UAE dispatched the first aircraft to Adana airport in southern Turkey, carrying “search and rescue teams, crews and medical equipment”.
The UAE said it plans to set up a field hospital in Turkey and will also send search and rescue teams to Syria with immediate relief supplies and emergency aid, the news agency said.
Earlier on Monday, Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan expressed his condolences to his Syrian and Turkish counterparts in two separate phone calls, according to WAM.
He “emphasized the UAE’s support for Syria and Turkey and offered to provide any assistance in their efforts to mitigate the effects of the earthquake.”
The UAE reopened its embassy in the Syrian capital in December 2018, suggesting an attempt to bring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime back into the Arab fold after years of boycott.
Last March, Assad visited the United Arab Emirates – his first to an Arab state in more than a decade of brutal civil war.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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