Finland condoles at quakes victims in Turkey, Syria

President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin on Monday expressed condolence at the deaths of people in earthquakes in Turkey and northwest of Syria.

The President sent a letter to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and expressed profound shock at the earthquake tragedy victims, said the President Office in a twitter post.

“President Niinistö has sent a letter to President @RTErdogan, expressing his deepest condolences for the lives lost and devastation endured in the tragic earthquake in Türkiye,” the President Office wrote.

Prime Minister Sanna Marin in another twitter post expressed deepest shock and underscored the need for urgent help to the victims.

“My deepest condolences for the victims and suffering due to the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria. Urgent help and assistance is now needed,” Marin wrote in her twitter.

The combined death toll from the initial quake in Turkey and Syria is now believed to be more than 2,700, reported British Broadcasting corporation (BBC).

A magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck Turkey’s southern province of Kahramanmaras at 4:17 a.m. local time (0117 GMT).

It was followed by a magnitude-6.4 quake a few minutes later in the country's southern province of Gaziantep and a magnitude-7.6 earthquake at 1:24 p.m. local time (1024 GMT) in the Kahramanmaras Province