The death toll from the powerful Feb. 6 earthquakes in southern Türkiye has risen to 43,556, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Wednesday.

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu stated that the death toll in Türkiye has surpassed 43000.

He made the remarks during a live broadcast with the TRT Haber TV channel in Hatay, one of the 11 provinces that were hit by the quakes.

“This is one of the biggest earthquakes in the world,” he said.

The minister said it required a certain period of time to respond when faced with 26,000 collapsed homes during the first hours, and the earthquakes hit an area covering 110,000 square kilometers (42,471 square miles).

“This is the size of three Netherlands,” he added.

Making a statement regarding the efforts being carried out to arrest the contractors of the destroyed buildings, Soylu said, “Nothing is more valuable than human life. Those who are quilty will pay the price. So far, 564 suspects have been identified and 160 have been arrested, 175 have been released under judicial control and 18 people are still in custody and the search for others continues,” he said.

The powerful tremors were centered in Kahramanmaras and shook 10 other provinces Hatay, Gaziantep, Adıyaman, Malatya, Adana, Diyarbakır, Kilis, Osmaniye, Sanlıurfa and Elazığ.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Türkiye will begin constructing more than 200,000 homes as early as March in areas devastated by the earthquakes and complete the process within one year.