Capital FM DJ apologies for saying now was the ‘best time’ for cheap flights to Turkey’

Radio DJ Ant Payne has issued a grovelling apology after coming under fire for making ‘insensitive’ remarks about flying to Turkey on the cheap after the country was devastated by two mega-quakes.

The Capital FM presenter, who hosts the 4pm to 7pm on the chart-hits station, said on yesterday’s show: ‘I think now actually is the best time to start looking at some cheap flights to Turkey over the next few years.

‘You can get your teeth done while you’re over there. You can come back looking 19 years, you’ll be on Love Island next year if you do it!’

Following a backlash on social media, Payne said: ‘Hi guys, I want to address the comment I made last night on the show. It was insensitive and ill timed. I would never wish to offend anyone from my shows. My sincere and wholehearted apologies.’

Turkey and Syria are reeling from two massive earthquakes which has left more than 35,000 people dead.

Payne was previously a presenter on Galaxy FM before joining Capital FM in January 2011.

A Global spokesperson directed MailOnline to Payne’s apology when approached for comment.

Payne had come under fire on Twitter, with one person saying: ‘Cant believe I just heard [Ant Payne] make fun of the #Turkeyearthquake on @CapitalOffical – he said ”flight from now for a few years should be cheap to Turkey to get your teeth done”.

‘I wonder how all the Turkish [and] Syrian communities and victims of this disaster feel about that?’

Payne responded to the tweet directly by saying: ‘Except I said nothing of the sort…’

But the outrage continued, with Liberal Democrat councillor Suzanne Nuri-Nixon urging him to ‘read the room’.

Zalihe Alp said: ‘We are burying our dead but #antpayne thinks it’s a good time for cheap flights to Turkey to get teeth done. Generations are lost. Whole streets flattened for blocks. Towns gone. Lives are traumatised. But let’s get our teeth done.’

Ex-Met Police Detective Sergeant, Sukie Madahar, tweeted: ‘@CapitalOfficial …one truly sick individual to deal with in the morning.  All those lives lost, 1000s injured and countless left with nothing.

‘Then you allow this idiot to use your platform to talk utter s***e…shocking and disgusting.’

The death toll as a result of the devastating earthquakes, that struck Turkey and Syria last week, has recently passed 35,000 as rescuers continued to work to reach people trapped under the rubble.

Rescuers are focusing their efforts on three provinces hit hard by the devastating quakes that hit Turkey and Syria last week.

In extremely hard-hit Hatay, Sengul Abalioglu lost her old sister and four nephews.

‘It doesn’t matter if dead or alive, we just want our corpses so that they at least have a grave and we bury them,’ she said as she waited in front of the rubble where her family could be.

They said last time they heard voices from the building was yesterday and complained that they started to search recently.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad agreed to open two new crossing points from Turkey to the country’s rebel-held northwest to deliver desperately needed aid and equipment to millions of earthquake victims, the United Nations announced on  Monday.

Quake survivors also face difficult conditions amid wrecked cities, with many sleeping outdoors in freezing weather.

Much of the region’s water system is not working, and damage to the system poses the risk of contamination.

Turkey’s health minister said samples taken from dozens of points of the water system were ‘microbiologically unfit,’ which highlights how precarious basic needs continue to be.

More than 41,500 buildings were destroyed or were so damaged that they would have to be demolished, according to the Minister of Environment and Urbanisation.

It is believed that there are still bodies to be recovered from under those buildings, and that the number of those missing remains unclear.

Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the vast devastation., despite the country introducing construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.

The death toll in Turkey stood at 31,643 as of Monday. Officials have decreased the frequency of death toll updates since the first week of the response, now releasing larger updates once or twice a day.

The toll in the northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group the White Helmets, while 1,414 people have died in government-held areas, according to the Syrian Health Ministry in Damascus.

The overall death toll in Syria stands at 3,580.