Death toll in Turkey, Syria earthquake reaches 36,217

The death toll across Turkey and Syria following Monday’s catastrophic earthquake reached at least 36,217, reports CNN.  

The death toll in Turkey has reached 31,643, Turkish Emergency Coordination Center SAKOM said Monday. 

The confirmed death toll in Syria is 4,574. That number includes more than 3,160 in opposition-held parts of northwestern Syria, according to the health ministry of the Salvation Government governance authority.

The Syrian death toll also includes 1,414 deaths in government-controlled parts of Syria, according to state news agency SANA.

Reuters reported, in Syria, the disaster hit hardest in the rebel-held northwest, leaving homeless yet again many people who had already been displaced several times by a decade-old civil war. The region has received little aid compared with government-held areas.

Read more: Syrian filmmaker says he lost 13 family members in the quake

"What is the most striking here, is even in Aleppo, which has suffered so much these many years, this moment, that moment... was about the worst that these people have experienced," the UN's Griffiths said.

The people of the region have been "failed," he said in an earlier Twitter post.

There is currently only a single crossing open on the Turkey-Syria border for U.N. aid supplies. Griffiths said that the UN would have aid moving from government-held regions in Syria to the rebel-held northwest.

The United States called on the Syrian government and all other parties to immediately grant humanitarian access to all those in need.

Earthquake aid from government-held regions into territory controlled by hardline opposition groups has been held up by approval issues with Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which controls much of the region, a U.N. spokesperson said.

An HTS source in Idlib told Reuters the group would not allow any shipments from government-held areas and that aid would be coming in from Turkey to the north.

The United Nations has said it is hoping to open an additional two border points.

Read more: Turkey orders 113 arrests linked to collapsed buildings probe

SECURITY CONCERNS

Residents and aid workers from several Turkish cities have cited worsening security conditions, with widespread accounts of businesses and collapsed homes being robbed.

In a central district of one of the worst hit cities, Antakya in southern Turkey, business owners emptied their shops on Sunday to prevent merchandise from being stolen by looters.

Amid concerns about hygiene and the spread of infection in the region, Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said at the weekend that rabies and tetanus vaccine had been sent to the quake zone and that mobile pharmacies had started to operate there.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said the government will deal firmly with looters, as he faces questions over his response to the earthquake ahead of an election scheduled for June that is expected to be the toughest of his two decades in power.

Turkey said on Sunday about 80,000 people were in hospital, and more than 1 million in temporary shelters.