PULSE NEWS MEXICO

Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) on Monday, Feb. 6, promised to send humanitarian aid to Turkey and Syria following the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit those countries earlier in the day.

During his daily press conference on Monday, López Obrador said that he had instructed the Foreign Relations Secretariat and the Defense Secretariat to organize the aid.

“Our solidarity is with the people of Turkey and Syria, who were affected by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake,” AMLO said.

“Unfortunately, lives were lost and there were many injuries.”

The president did not say how much aid he would send nor in what form.

More than 5,000 people were killed and thousands more injured after a powerful earthquake his southern Turkey and Syria early Monday.

The quake, one of the strongest to hit the region in more than a century, struck 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers (14.9 miles), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.