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The Feb. 6, 2023 earthquakes imposed a combined direct and indirect economic cost of $254 billion on Türkiye, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a commemoration ceremony in the southern province of Osmaniye, where he also marked the opening of newly completed reconstruction investments.
Speaking at the program, Erdogan said the disaster created both immediate physical destruction and wider economic disruption across multiple sectors. "These earthquakes, one of the greatest disasters in our history, had a direct cost to our economy of $104 billion and an indirect cost of $150 billion," he said.
Erdogan stated that the total damage corresponds to about 9% of Türkiye’s 2023 gross domestic product (GDP) at $1.3 trillion.
Two earthquakes measuring 7.8 and 7.6 in magnitude struck southern Türkiye on Feb. 6, 2023, on the same day. The impact zone covered about 120,000 square kilometers across 11 provinces and directly affected around 14 million people, Erdogan recalled.
53,697 people lost their lives and 107,213 were injured, according to official data, while about 3.5 million residents were evacuated from the disaster region.
Out of roughly 2.3 million buildings in the affected provinces, about 39,555 collapsed during the earthquakes. More than 199,000 buildings were classified as heavily damaged, while around 36,000 were recorded as moderately damaged.
According to the Turkish Presidency’s Strategy and Budget Office’s latest report, public spending related to earthquake recovery reached ₺3.6 trillion ($91.5 billion) over the past three years, with a focus on heavily affected provinces such as Kahramanmaras and Hatay.
The Treasury and Finance Ministry also stated that external financing used to support the region’s revitalization reached $8.7 billion over the past three years.
Over the three years, rebuilding efforts accelerated and neared completion, as Erdogan said reconstruction work has led to the delivery of 455,357 units so far, including 433,667 housing units and 21,690 workplaces.
Economic activity in the disaster region also partly recovered, with the Trade Ministry reporting that exports from earthquake-affected provinces rose to $25.01 billion in 2025 and that overseas sales returned to an upward trend.
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