A multi-vehicle crash inTurkeyleft at least 12 people dead on Saturday, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The agency reports that the crash in Turkey’s Hatay province also injured 31 other people, with three seriously injured, per theAssociated Press.
Vehicle crash Saturday in Turkey.IHA via AP
“May God have mercy on our citizens who lost their lives, I express my condolences to their relatives,” Health Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote in a translated tweet. “We will do our best to ensure that the injured regain their health as soon as possible.”
The minister added that the Iskenderun-Antakya highway saw fires break out as 22 ambulances and three medical rescue teams appeared at the scene.
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
The AP reported Hatay was hit hard during the February earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, which the government said left 50,783 dead in Turkey.
At the time, Turkey’sPresident Recep Tayyip Erdoğancalled the7.8-magnitude quakethe disaster of the century, per theNew York Times. And as a result, 10 provinces in Turkey were issued to be under a three-month state of emergency, while the Turkish government was criticized for its response to the event and preparation.
It also reportedly marked the deadliest earthquake worldwide since 2015, when a 7.8-magnitude quake left 8,800 people dead in Nepal.
Salazar told the network that the man had undergone an open-heart procedure beforehand and so her sister 32-year-old Kimberly, and Kimberly’s husband Burak Firik, 35, and their sons, Hamza, 2 and Bilal, 1, went to visit him at the time. The four family members and Burak’s mother died.
“He basically saw his building collapse before his own eyes, and he couldn’t do anything,” Salazar said of her sister’s father-in-law. “He spent over 12 hours digging and just finding people to help him dig because the machines weren’t able to go in.”
“We’re all very broken in my family. Our hearts are broken.”
source: people.com
