144 students, teachers pulled out dead from quake wreckage in Syria
DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – On Wednesday, the Syrian Minister of Education, announced that the bodies of 123 students and 21 teachers were pulled out from under the rubble after a major earthquake on February 6.
Syria’s Minister of Education, Darem Tabbaa, said in a statement to the radio station al-Madina FM that, “the numbers may be greater than those documented.”
The earthquakes that struck Syria and Turkey on February 6 claimed at least 45,000 lives, as the number is still rising.
On the day of the earthquake, the Syrian Ministry of Education suspended all schools in the government-held areas until the weekend. It then resumed schooling in all governorates, except for the affected areas, which have also gradually resumed classes in schools that were not damaged by the earthquake, and do not include affected populations.
The Ministry of Education said that out of 1.941 schools damaged by the earthquake and aftershocks, 40 schools were out of service, 1.477 of them had some cracks, and 102 were turned into shelters for those affected by the earthquake.