Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Ali Sabry has offered the assistance of rescue services to the Foreign Minister of Turkiye following the two earthquakes that struck the country today (6).
The President’s Media Division (PMD) stated that Sri Lanka has offered its assistance on the instructions of President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Embassy in Turkiye has revealed that the 09 Sri Lankans who were living where the 7.8 magnitude quake struck in Turkiye are safe.
The Sri Lankan Embassy stated that 08 out of the 9 Sri Lankans living in the earthquake-affected areas have been traced.
Sri Lankan Ambassador in Ankara Hasanthi Urugodawatte Dissanayake stated that, however, the remaining Sri Lankan is yet to be located.
She stated that even though he was a resident of the apartment complex that collapsed due to the earthquake, he was not at home at the time of the incident and is yet to be contacted.
“As of now, we know that all nine of them are safe. We have received reports on eight of them and we were informed that the ninth person was living in one of the collapsed buildings. But later we came to know that that person was not in the building at the time of its collapse,” she said.
The Ambassador stated that they are still unaware of the exact location of that person and that they are working on obtaining those details through the disaster management agency in that country. “That is all the information we have for now,” she said.
According to CNN, more than 1,500 people have been killed and thousands more injured after a powerful magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey and Syria early on Monday.
The quake, one of the strongest to hit the region in more than 100 years, struck 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers, the US Geological Survey said.
Multiple strong aftershocks have been felt across the region for hours after the first quake, including a severe quake measuring magnitude 7.5.
Turkey’s disaster agency appealed for help from the international community as it conducts search and rescue operations. (NewsWire)
