João Lourenço wrote to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to whom he expressed "deep feelings of regret and solidarity" on behalf of the Angolan executive and his own.
In another message, this one sent to President Bashar Hafez Al-Assad, the head of state also lamented the tragedy that befell Syrian territory, with the registration of a large number of victims.
"I express my regret for this tragic event and express my unfailing solidarity at this dramatic time, in which I ask you to present our most heartfelt condolences to the relatives of the mortal victims, on behalf of the Angolan executive and on my own", he wrote. the President of the Republic of Angola to his Syrian counterpart.
More than 2,300 people died after the earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale and aftershocks that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria, according to the provisional balance of local authorities.
According to AFAD, a Turkish public disaster management body, the earthquakes killed 1,498 people in Turkey and injured at least 8,533.
According to the source, 2,834 buildings collapsed, raising fears of a greater number of victims, in addition to hundreds of deaths in neighboring Syria.
The earthquake also left 430 dead and 1,315 injured in areas controlled by the Syrian Government, according to data from the Syrian Ministry of Health collected by the SANA news agency. Provisional data correspond to the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Tartus.
Added to these figures are 380 dead and more than a thousand wounded in rebel-held areas in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, in the northwest of the country, according to the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the 'white helmets', via its Twitter account. , where he lamented "the catastrophe and devastation" caused by the earthquake.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) the earthquake that occurred registered a magnitude of 7.8 and dozens of aftershocks were felt.
The earthquake occurred at 4:17 am, 33 kilometers from the provincial capital of Gaziantep, in southeastern Turkey and close to the border with Syria, at a depth of 17.9 kilometers.
The earthquake hit southeast Turkey and Syria and is considered the biggest since 1939. The 7.8 magnitude tremor was also felt in Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel and Jordan.
