Germany sends 90 tonnes of aid supplies to Türkiye after earthquake

Germany announced on Friday that it was sending 90 tonnes of aid supplies by air to Türkiye, where the death toll from the earthquake that shook the country’s southeast on Monday continues to rise.

“Three A400M military aircraft left Thursday from the Wunstorf air base in Lower Saxony “with 50 tonnes of material on board” and three other aircraft will take off this Friday with “more than 40 tonnes of aid material,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said, quoted by the local press.

It is important that the material arrives where people can be helped quickly” as the earthquake has created “a picture of devastation that we can hardly imagine,” Pistorius added.

The supplies being sent include some 60 tents, 1,000 cots, electric blankets, heaters and generators, as requested by the Turkish authorities, an interior ministry spokesman told reporters.

According to the latest official figures, the earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.8, followed by more than a hundred tremors, has killed 21,719 people, including 18,342 in Türkiye and 3,377 in Syria.