President Tayyip Erdogan indicated on Wednesday that elections will be held on May 14, sticking to his previous plan for the vote with a date just over three months after a devastating earthquake killed more than 45,000 people in Turkey.
Erdogan has faced a wave of criticism over his government's handling of the deadliest quake in the nation's modern history. But he defended Ankara's response on Wednesday, saying it had been caught up in "a storm of earthquakes".
Earlier on Wednesday, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said the death toll in Turkey had risen to 45,089, bringing the total toll including Syria to about 51,000. The quake also injured 108,000 people in Turkey. Erdogan has pledged to rebuild homes within a year but it will be many months before thousands can leave tents or container housing, and daily queues for food, to move into permanent housing.
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