Turkey stops search and rescue in almost all affected areas to begin reconstruction on February 19, 2023. (Photo: VOV journalist based in Cairo)

Two weeks after the strongest earthquake in a century in southern Turkey. Turkey, Syria, and international organizations have not yet made a final assessment of economic losses. The general evaluation is that the damage is huge and reconstruction will certainly take several years and need great financial resources beyond the capacity of the two affected countries.

Challenging reconstruction work

Initial assessments say 345,000 apartments in 11 provinces and cities were destroyed and 105,000 buildings collapsed or were seriously damaged. Thousands of kilometers of roads and hundreds of infrastructure works for electricity, water, telecommunications, or irrigation were destroyed or damaged.

The Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation put the cost of the damage at 84.1 billion USD - 70.8 billion USD to repair thousands of buildings, 10.4 billion USD in loss of income, and 2.9 billion USD in loss of production.

Some international organizations say losses in Turkey may reach hundreds of billions of USD, much higher than the losses in Syria. JPMorgan says direct costs of destroyed physical structures in Turkey could amount to 2.5% of GDP – about 25 billion USD. It will take Turkey 3 to 5 years to recover from the earthquake and reconstruct the country.

For Syria economic difficulties on top of the war complications will make reconstruction more difficult. It could take decades.

Inflation and political complications will hinder President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s plan to mobilize the necessary resources to start rebuilding 30,000 residential buildings in March, while also helping more than 100,000 injured people and millions of homeless people.

For Syria, the situation is even more difficult with the national budget already exhausted after more than a decade of civil war and tough sanctions by the West.

Turkish people thank Vietnamese rescue workers. (Photo: VOV journalist based in Cairo)

International actions are needed

Three days after the earthquake, the World Bank announced 1.78 billion USD to help Turkey with relief and recovery efforts. Tens of countries, including Vietnam, have announced financial aid for Turkey and Syria. The US pledged 100 million in aid to each country.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on February 16 launched a campaign to raise 1 billion USD to help the victims. The International Red Cross called for more than 700 million USD in emergency aid to help Turkey and Syria.

International organizations say that, given the large scale of the disaster, reconstruction in Turkey and Syria should receive more generous commitments from rich countries and large financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.