Earthquake kills 46 students, teachers in Syria’s Latakia
DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Syrian Minister of Education, Darem al-Tabaa, said on Friday that 46 teachers and students have died in the Syrian governorate of Latakia as a result of the recent earthquake that hit the country.
Al-Tabaa said, in a statement to the local radio channel Sham FM, that due to the earthquake, 599 schools have been damaged in Syrian government-held areas.
The damaged schools are old structures, as modern ones were built to withstand 7-magnitude earthquakes, he added.
One hundred twenty-nine schools in Latakia have been turned into accommodation centers to shelter the affected people, as more than 137.000 affected civilians have sought shelter at schools affiliated to the Ministry of Education, he said.
Classes are set to resume in all Syrian governorates except for disaster areas, which include the governorates of Latakia, Aleppo, Hama and Idlib.
On February 6, the Ministry of Education halted classes in all areas held by the government.