UN launches humanitarian airlifts to quake-hit Turkey

A flight carrying humanitarian aids from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is due to touch down in Erzurum of eastern Turkey on Friday evening. The Geneva based UN body said in Friday morning that the emergency airlift is in response to the Turkish Red Crescent's appeal for help on Tuesday. The Illyushin-76 cargo plane will fly 37 metric tons of relief items including 500 tents and 10,000 blankets from UNHCR emergency stockpile in Dubai. Three more fights with similar load of relief items are schedule to land in Erzurum on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, bringing the total of UNHCR emergency relief response for the victims of the earthquake to 4,000 tents, 50,000 blankets and 10,000 sleeping mats. The death toll following Sunday's powerful earthquake that struck the province of Van in eastern Turkey stands at 570 as of Friday morning, the Prime Ministry's Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD) said. AFAD also said 2,250 people were injured in the 7.2-magnitude quake, adding that 187 people had been rescued from collapsed buildings since the quake.