Economic losses estimated as $103.6 billion

A report published by the Turkish Presidency's Strategy and Budget Directorate on earthquake recovery and reconstruction highlighted that the economic damage caused by the earthquakes that struck on Feb. 6 was approximately 2 trillion Turkish liras ($103.6 billion) and said that this figure is equivalent to 9% of the national income expectancy in 2023.

The report also found that the financial loss caused by these earthquakes was about six times greater than the 1999 Marmara earthquake.

The report said that there have been more than 20 earthquakes with a magnitude of 7 or higher since 1900 in Turkey and the earthquakes with the most fatalities and severe damage were the 2023 Kahramanmaras earthquake, the 1939 Erzincan earthquake, and the 1999 Marmara earthquake, respectively.

The earthquakes on February 6 epicentered in Kahramanmaraş's Pazarcık and Elbistan districts and the one in Hatay Yayladağı on February 20th caused significant destruction in 11 cities.

More than 48,000 people lost their lives, over half a million buildings were damaged, and communication and energy infrastructure suffered.

The report said that the total population of the 11 affected cities was recorded as 14,013,196 in 2022 and represented 16.4% of the country's demographics. Additionally, there were 1,738,035 migrant population living in temporary shelters in the earthquake zone. According to 2021 data, the disaster region had 3.8 million employed individuals, accounting for 13.3% of the country's employment. Of the workers, 2.3 million were registered, and 1.5 million were unregistered. The rate of informality in the employment in the disaster region was around 39%. The total number of buildings in the region was approximately 2.6 million.