Donations collected by Istanbul’s Üsküdar Municipality to be sent to Turkey’s earthquake zones have been sitting in a makeshift storage room for the past year, local media reported.
According to the BirGün daily, items such as toys, clothes, shoes and space heaters were collected by the municipality to be sent to provinces affected by the February 6, 2023 earthquakes. Piles of donated items were then stored in a shed in a parking lot owned by the municipality, only to be forgotten one year on.
Municipal officials said they had no idea why the items had not been sent and were investigating the situation.
Two devastating earthquakes that hit Turkey on February 6, 2023, killed more than 53,000 people and left millions homeless in 11 provinces in the country’s south and southeast. The earthquakes caused $100 billion in damage, according to Turkish officials.
The European Union announced on the first anniversary of twin earthquakes that the EU would provide Turkey with humanitarian assistance totaling €755.6 million in the next few months.
