Over 6,000 foreigners killed in Türkiye quake

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has said that over 6,600 foreigners were killed by the devastating February earthquakes in the country.

"6,660 of the dead were foreign nationals," Soylu said at a news conference in quake-hit Malatya province along with Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy on March 13, Anadolu reports.

Debris removal work continues, he added.

He said that the death toll from powerful earthquakes that struck southern Türkiye last month had risen to 48,448.

On February 6, the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes struck 11 provinces — Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa.

More than 13.5 million people in Türkiye have been affected by the devastating quakes, as well as many others in northern Syria.