Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday pledged to rebuild the country's southern region that was struck by powerful earthquakes on Feb. 6, claiming the lives of more than 50,000 people. "Our aim is to restore our cities in the earthquake zone by handing over 319,000 residences and village houses to owners within a year," Erdogan said at a ground-breaking ceremony in quake-hit Elazig province. Erdogan said Trkiye will erase the traces of the destruction caused by the disaster, and prepare "more strongly" for possible disasters in the future. Magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes struck 11 Turkish provinces - Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa. More than 13.5 million people in Trkiye have been affected by the quakes, as well as many others in northern Syria.

Source: Anadolu Agency