U.S. Promises Assistance After Turkey and Syria Devastated by Deadly Earthquake

The U.S. is moving quickly to send assistance to Turkey and Syria, President Joe Biden said Monday, after a powerful earthquake and aftershocks left more than 3,400 people dead as of Monday afternoon.

“My Administration has been working closely with our NATO Ally Turkiye, and I authorized an immediate U.S. response. At my direction, senior American officials reached out immediately to their Turkish counterparts to coordinate any and all needed assistance,” Biden said in a statement. “Our teams are deploying quickly to begin to support Turkish search and rescue efforts and address the needs of those injured and displaced by the earthquake. U.S.-supported humanitarian partners are also responding to the destruction in Syria.”

Following Biden’s statement, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced that it had deployed a disaster assistance response team that will assist Turkish authorities with search and rescue. USAID will also deploy search-and-rescue teams from fire departments in Los Angeles County and Fairfax County, Va., the organization’s administrator, Samantha Power, said in a statement.

Read the source article at politico.com