Close to a million survivors trying to fend for themselves

Close to a million earthquake survivors in Turkey are trying to live on their own resources 18 days after twin quakes struck, mainstream Haberturk's Kubra Par cited Turkish Red Crescent's top official on Friday.

Par drew a picture of the situation surrounding over three million survivors after she interviewed Kerem Kinik, the President of the Red Crescent, who provided her with the latest official data.

Kinik told Par that nearly half a million survivors have been evacuated from the earthquake zone to other parts of the country, while 1.6 million are currently provided accommodation in quake hit provinces, 1.3 million living in tents supplied by state agencies.

Some 956,000 survivors continue to rely on their own means of shelter, Kinik added.

Living in tents in harsh winter conditions is awfully hard for the survivors, and it looks impossible to provide enough container homes in the coming days, Par warned.

For the being, a mere 26,000 survivors are provided container homes, and officials are planning to add 103,000 to the current stock of 6,561 by stepping up production.

Kinik said that the shortage in tents was aggravated by the individual demands of families who did not want to leave their land or house unprotected and refused to move into a distant tent camp.

"People want to set up tents near their houses," he said. "The houses of some have not been destroyed, many have not even received any severe damage, but people are afraid to go back into buildings. Considering this, the total demand [for tents] in the region is around two million. This is not a demand that can be easily met."

He said the number of tents set up in the earthquake zone is 326,000 and a further 109,000 are planned to be supplied, adding that the production capacity of the Red Crescent is limited to a thousand tents a day.