How do they know how many people died so soon after a major disaster?

Question

In Turkey and Syria now they’re saying 1,800 people died already. Is it as simple as counting the bodies and reporting that?

In: 6513

Answer 1

When a six level apartment collapses at night, and probably has 100 people in it, you can’t easily count bodies in the wreckage. And looking for survivors takes a lot of effort so they guess at first, and verify as they go. It never will be an exact count, but that really isn’t what’s important. Finding survivors is where the effort should be, and helping the displaced not starve.