Turkish rescuers during the search found about $ 2 million under the rubble in the city of Gaziantep, which suffered from the strongest earthquakes. The emergency services handed over the funds to the local police. This was announced on Friday, February 17, by the agency Anadolu.
The money was discovered when rescuers found the man’s body in the rubble of the Ayşe-Mehmet Polat residential complex.
“In total, there were 2 million dollars next to the man, the rescuers handed over the money to the special forces. Our guys first of all save lives, but valuable things are also handed over to the police – this is not an isolated case,” said the head of the fire service of the city, Jafer Yilmaz.
Yilmaz stressed that all valuable items found by rescuers are either transferred to their owners or to police officers.
Earlier in the day, it became known that rescuers rescued a man from the rubble, who spent 278 hours under piles of concrete. 45-year-old Hakan Yasinoglu was hospitalized. Doctors assessed his condition as satisfactory.
It was also reported that more than 150 people were detained in southeastern Turkey on suspicion of looting in earthquake-affected regions.
Earlier, on February 14, Russian rescuers, while clearing rubble after earthquakes in Turkey, found $150,000 in a residential building. Banknotes for inventory were handed over to the local police.
Earlier, on February 8, Turkish MP Umit Ozdag said that numerous cases of looting had been recorded in the affected areas. According to him, mostly Syrian migrants are operating. Marauders take out food, equipment and furniture from empty shops and houses. It comes to the fact that gold jewelry is removed from the bodies under the rubble. The deputy noted that for many this is a forced step, since not everyone received humanitarian assistance.
Earthquakes of magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 occurred on February 6 in the province of Kahramanmarash in southeastern Turkey near the border with Syria. According to the latest data, 39,672 people died in Turkey as a result of the disaster.
On February 14, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe, Hans Kluge, called the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria the worst natural disaster in the region in the last 100 years. According to him, 26 million people in Turkey and Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance.
