The two very large earthquakes of February 6, 2022 caused an estimated $34.2 billion in direct physical damages in Türkiye, the equivalent of 4% of the country’s 2021 GDP, according to a World Bank rapid damage assessment report released today.
The report also acknowledges that recovery and reconstruction costs will be much larger, potentially twice as large, and that GDP losses associated to economic disruptions will also add to the cost of the earthquakes.
Continued aftershocks will also likely add to this damage estimate over time, says the report, which has been prepared to help inform the early response of the World Bank Group and its partners and to support government planning for recovery and reconstruction in Türkiye.
The February 6 earthquakes of 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude, followed by more than 7,500 aftershocks and two additional earthquakes, have resulted in the largest such disaster to hit the country in over 80 years, and have inflicted the heaviest damage in 11 provinces in southern Türkiye. These regions have some of the highest poverty rates in Türkiye and also host more than 1.7 million Syrian refugees, which is almost 50% of the total Syrian refugee population in Türkiye.
The Global Rapid Post-Disaster Damage Estimation (GRADE) Report, which focuses on the direct physical damages in Türkiye, also estimates that 1.25 million people have been rendered temporarily homeless due to moderate to severe damage or complete building collapse. The report also highlights that 81% of the estimated damages occurred in Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Gaziantep, Malatya and Adıyaman provinces, which are home to around 6.45 million people (around 7.4% of the total population of Türkiye).
Direct damages to residential buildings account for 53% ($18 billion) of the total damage, with 28% of damage ($9.7 billion) in non-residential buildings (e.g., health facilities, schools, government buildings, and private sector buildings), and 19% of damage ($6.4 billion) related to infrastructure (e.g., roads, power, water supply). The damage estimates in the report do not include the broader economic impacts and losses for the Turkish economy, or the cost of recovery and reconstruction which could be significantly more than the direct damages and requires a more in-depth assessment.
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