On the evening of the 19th, Yunus Sezel, Director of Türkiye's Disaster and Emergency Management Agency, said that the search and rescue work in eight other provinces in the earthquake area had ended, except for the provinces of Kahlamamarash and Khathai. The next step is to clear the building ruins, build temporary accommodation and restore and rebuild the infrastructure. Sezer said at the press conference that in the provinces of Kahra Manmalash and Khathai, search and rescue workers were working day and night in shifts to search for survivors in 40 collapsed buildings. He said that the strong earthquake in southern Türkiye on the 6th had killed 40689 people in the country. The death toll will increase further as search and rescue workers dig more bodies from the building ruins. In the past 24 hours, search and rescue personnel found no survivors in the ruins. Sezel said that the earthquake affected 10 provinces of Türkiye, with 13.5 million people directly affected. Many people are now homeless. The central government of Türkiye is cooperating with local governments and international aid organizations to carry out large-scale resettlement operations in the disaster area, and strive to build tents, containers and other temporary shelters for the victims. So far, nearly 250000 tents have been put into use in the disaster area, more than 6000 container shelters have been built, and another 68000 container shelters are about to be completed. The goal is to build 100000 container shelters within two months. According to the latest statistics released by Türkiye, there are more than 84000 buildings collapsed, severely damaged or in urgent need of demolition in the earthquake stricken area. (Xinhua News Agency)