Turkey and Syria earthquake survivors face ‘terrible conditions’ as cold threatens ‘minor disaster’

Deir Ballut, Syria – Duaa al-Ghadhban, a widow and homeless woman, lost everything in a powerful earthquake, forcing her to take refuge in a camp for people displaced by the war in northwest Syria. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake early Monday morning killed more than 20,000 people in Turkey and Syria and flattened entire homes on top of sleeping residents.

CBS News reporter Chris Livesay reported Thursday from in front of one of those destroyed buildings — a six-story building that was home to 24 families — all reduced to crumbling concrete and twisted steel.

Two bodies were pulled from the rubble while our team was there, and another body was visible among the rubble. Rescuers said a teenage girl was still alive under the concrete slabs. I was able to text a friend to let people know she was trapped.

People sit and stand around a collapsed building in Golbasi, Adiyaman Province, southern Turkey, February 8, 2023, several days after the devastating earthquake hit the area. Emrah Gurel/AP

The earthquake killed Abdel-Dayem El-Moaini’s wife and buried him alive. For 72 hours, he avoided exposure, hypothermia, and unimaginable grief, knowing his wife did not survive.

There was an unusual cold, with temperatures 15 degrees lower than normal. The World Health Organization says the conditions are making the disaster even deadlier.

“We have a lot of people who are now surviving out in the open and in bad, horrific conditions,” said Robert Holden, director of earthquake response at the World Health Organization. Disruption of fuel, electricity supply, communication supply – the necessities of life. We are in real danger of seeing a secondary disaster that may harm more people than the primary disaster.”

International search and rescue teams and relief supplies are starting to pour in, including two teams from the United States

Aid groups race to send aid to Turkey and Syria after the earthquakes 04:24

US Ambassador to Turkey Jeff Flake told CBS News that two US Black Hawk helicopters were flying missions to rescue people from the quake zone.

“The assets they have — machines, you know, to cut concrete and rebar and dogs as well, to try and find the survivors that are still out there,” Flake said. “You know — when we fight back, we do it really well.

Isobel Coleman, deputy administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said on CBS News Thursday that the agency has set aside $85 million for earthquake relief efforts.

“It’s just an incredible situation,” Coleman said, adding that “the window is closing to find survivors.”

The US ambassador to Turkey discusses search and rescue efforts as the death toll in the earthquake rises 07:51

Meanwhile, a first aid convoy crossed into Syria from Turkey on Thursday, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters in New York included six trucks carrying shelter and other much-needed relief supplies.

Asked by CBS News correspondent Pamela Falk if the United Nations was disappointed by the delay in getting aid to Syria in the aftermath of the earthquakes, Guterres said, “We are all struggling to do the best we can.”

The help comes too late for the thousands of people who are still desperate to see their loved ones pulled from collapsed buildings on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border.

“My mother, father and brother are under the rubble,” Celine Ekemen, a 34-year-old survivor, cried. “There has been no sound from them for days. Nothing.”

Syrians displaced by the country’s 12-year war, who live in tents along the Turkish border, have largely escaped harm. This includes Ghadhban, 21, who was pulled from the rubble hours after the quake and now lives in the poor shelter of a relative in the Deir Ballut camp in northwest Syria.

The distraught mother stared at a photo of one of her dead children on her phone, sobbing as she kissed the screen.

She said she saw her husband’s body trapped under concrete slabs, while he was embracing one of her three children – all of whom are now dead.

Duaa al-Ghadban, who lost her family in a deadly earthquake, shows a picture of her deceased son in a temporary shelter in the Deir Ballut camp for internally displaced people where she took refuge in the Afrin region of northern Syria, which is under the control of the rebels. Aleppo province, February 8, 2022. RAMI AL-SAYED/AFP/Getty Images

“They buried them together. My husband did not let him go,” al-Ghadban said, barefoot in the winter cold, her voice breaking as she recalled the tragedy that took the life of her 40-day-old baby. “I still can’t believe I made it, I feel like I’m still stuck under the rubble.”

She is now crammed into one room with her mother, sister, brother and their families.

“We have nothing left,” she said.

Many survivors like Ghadban flocked to camps including Deir Ballut, either because they had nowhere to sleep or because they feared aftershocks would level their damaged homes.

Fada Muhammad, a resident of the camp, told AFP that the residents “thanked God for their tents after seeing what happened.”

After the disaster struck, Ghiath Zarzour moved to the camp to live with two of his displaced cousins ​​and their families.

Ghiath Zarzour (2-right), who was injured in a deadly earthquake, sits among his family members in a temporary shelter in the Deir Ballut camp for displaced people in the Afrin district of the Syrian opposition-held northern Aleppo province, on February 8. 2022, after being left homeless. Rami El-Sayed/AFP/Getty Images

“We are 30 people in this small room, without heating or blankets,” he said, wrapped in white gauze, his eyes swollen.

Already displaced from Damascus by the war, Zarzour has now lost his second home in the northern town of Jandaria.

“We were displaced again and again,” he said, huddled under the same blanket with his children. Today history repeats itself.

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