The Turkish Medical Association has questioned the official information on the earthquake deaths. They want to query the number of burials from the municipalities by the beginning of March and thus check the government information, said Vedat Bulut from the TTB Medical Association of the German Press Agency.
“We have doubts about the numbers,” Bulut told the German Press Agency. “For example, when 6,000 deaths were reported in Kahramanmaras, there were burial records for 11,000 people.” The reason for this could either be that the official figures are given too low. Theoretically, however, it could also be that the dead were brought to Kahramanmaras by their relatives from other provinces.
At least 41,156 people in Turkey have been killed in connection with the tremors, according to the state disaster control agency Afad on Monday.
Bulut estimates the actual number of deaths at around 60,000, “but that’s not an objective estimate at the moment. We’ll get the burial numbers from the communities, then it’ll be clear.”
