Construction of 61,000 houses underway in Türkiye

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the construction of  61,000 new housing units has begun in 11 quake-affected provinces.

"We will not stop until we revive all of our cities destroyed by the earthquakes, along with their villages and districts," the president told a groundbreaking ceremony for new houses in the quake-hit city of Gaziantep on Friday.

Saying that a "comprehensive preparation for the transformation of risky buildings across Türkiye" is being carried out, Erdoğan pledged to "make our cities safe, peaceful, resistant to earthquakes, floods, landslides, fires and all other risks as soon as possible with the Türkiye National Risk Shield model."

"Our aim is to construct a total of 650,000 new houses, 319,000 of which are to be completed within a year, and deliver them to the quake victims," he added.

On Feb. 6, magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes struck Türkiye. Over 13.5 million people in Türkiye have been affected by the quakes as well as many others in northern Syria.