Missing Indian man's body discovered under demolished hotel in Turkey

The Indian embassy said on Saturday that the body of an Indian man who had been missing since the earthquake that struck Turkey on February 6 had been found under the debris of the hotel where he had been staying.

According to the embassy, the man, Vijay Kumar, was from the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand and was travelling to Turkey for business.

He was rescued from beneath a hotel's debris in Malatya, an area that was heavily affected by the terrible earthquake.

The businessman was identified with a tattoo of the word "Om" on one of his hands, his relatives said, citing Indian embassy officials, according to news agency PTI.

He lived in the Padampur neighbourhood of Kotdwar in the Pauri district. On Friday, his clothes had been discovered.

The embassy stated that every preparation is being made to return the body to India.

According to the agency's study, roughly 3,000 Indians are living in Turkey, 1,800 of them reside in and around Istanbul, 250 in Ankara, and the remainder is dispersed throughout the whole nation.

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday caused thousands of buildings to collapse, trapped an undetermined number of people, and may have affected millions of people. The current death toll is 25,000, and more deaths are anticipated.

The disaster agency for Turkey reported on Saturday that almost 32,000 Turkish citizens are helping with search and rescue operations. There are also 8,294 international rescuers.

According to S Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs, India is deploying search and rescue teams to Turkey as part of "Operation Dost" and is also sending material, medical supplies, and equipment to Syria.

Even with the bitter cold adding to the suffering of the millions who are now in urgent need of assistance, tens of thousands of local and foreign rescue personnel are still scouring through the destroyed neighbourhoods.

For the first time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged on Friday that his country was unable to reach and assist the victims "as swiftly as we had intended."

The tremor was the most intense and deadly since a 7.8-magnitude tremor killed 33,000 people in 1939.

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