"New houses for Elazığ quake victims to be ready by August"

Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek, State Minister Mehmet Aydın and deputy Necati Çetinkaya accompanied Erdoğan during the visit. “New houses will be constructed before Ramadan, which starts on Aug. 11, to replace the collapsed houses. … We need to take a lesson from this incident. We always talk about urban transformation and urban change. We have initiated a project to build 420 houses in our country’s 81 provinces,” Erdoğan said.

Keko makes Turkey weep

The earthquake left many children orphaned or without a parent. Three-year-old Keko Çiçek lost several family members when his mother and brother died under the rubble of their mud-brick house. Relatives only told him about the situation a day after he was pulled out alive. He visited the grave of his mother and brother on Wednesday, embracing his mother’s tomb in tears. Keko’s father, who works in Germany, left for Turkey upon hearing about the quake on TV and arrived in Elazığ yesterday.

Four siblings from the Yıldırım family lost both their parents. They came from Germany, where they work, to the Yukarı Demirci village, where 17 were killed by the quake, after hearing about the tragedy on TV, but were unable to attend the funeral.

The Demirtaş family lost several of its members. The mud roof of the room where four of the family’s children slept the night the earthquake occurred collapsed, killing all of them. The roofs of the other rooms, however, did not collapse. “If our house had not been made of mud brick, my brothers would be alive today. They all died after the mud bricks fell on them,” the surviving sibling, who was sleeping in a different room, said.

Officials lower death toll to 41

A statement released by the Elazığ Governor’s Office on Thursday scaled back the official death toll to 41. It had originally been reported to be 51. The statement said erroneous reporting was responsible for the earlier number following Monday’s temblor.

The NTV and Habertürk television stations said some women were counted twice when their maiden and current last names were considered to belong to two different people. The Anatolia news agency said one male victim was also counted twice because he had changed his name. Anatolia in addition said some victims were not registered in written records and that relatives had to identify them and provide names.

Meanwhile, 74 people were injured in the disaster while 988 apartments, 44 workplaces and 1,351 animal quarters were damaged. A total of 2,777 sheep and 233 cattle died, according to a statement released by the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate yesterday. Aid amounting to TL 625,000 has been sent to the quake-stricken area.

Kimse Yok Mu extends helping   hand to Elazığ victims

The Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There) charitable association arrived in the quake zone immediately upon hearing about the incident and began distributing aid, including food, blankets and clothes, in six earthquake-stricken villages. The second distribution phase will begin on Saturday. The association is working in cooperation with the Disaster Coordination Center of the Elazığ Governor’s Office.

Anyone wishing to donate to the association to help the quake victims can visit the www.kimseyokmu.org.tr Web site for more information or donate money to account No. 885777 through Postal and Telecommunications General Directorate (PTT) offices across Turkey. Additionally, you can donate TL 5 to the cause by sending an SMS message to 5777. For more information, call 44 44 593.