Some Turkish earthquake survivors have been pulled from the rubble, but hopes for more are fading

The prospect of rescuing more people in Turkey and Syria – trapped under rubble after four days of earthquakes measuring 7.8 and 7.5 on the Richter scale – is fading, but on Friday several survivors were pulled from the rubble in Turkey’s southern province of Hatay, including woman. and her 6-month-old daughter.

Officials say the death toll from powerful earthquakes that struck the border region between Turkey and Syria on Monday now exceeds 23,700, making it the world’s deadliest seismic event since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed nearly 20,000 people in Japan.

On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Adiyaman province, where he acknowledged that the government could have responded faster to this week’s earthquakes.

“Although we have the largest search and rescue team in the world right now, the reality is that search efforts are not as fast as we would like,” he said.

Erdogan declared national mourning for seven days and a three-month state of emergency in 10 provinces directly affected by the earthquake.

Both Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad faced questions about the speed of their governments’ response to the crisis.

Assad and his wife paid their first visit Friday to earthquake victims at a hospital in the government-held city of Aleppo, which has suffered massive damage from years of bombing during the country’s civil war.

The Syrian president appeared on television presiding over emergency meetings on the earthquakes, but he did not address the country or hold a press conference about the disaster.

Volunteers carry boxes of food to be distributed to people displaced after the devastating earthquake in Latakia, Syria, February 10, 2023.

In a move that could help speed up the delivery of aid to survivors, Syrian state media reported on Friday that the government had agreed to deliver humanitarian aid to all parts of the country, including opposition-held areas in the northwest.

Hope fades for the survivors

After more than four days of powerful earthquakes, hope of finding survivors is starting to wane. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of rescuers, including teams from dozens of countries, continued to work day and night in their search for survivors.

On Thursday, Turkey’s disaster management agency said some 110,000 personnel were involved in the rescue effort, and 5,500 vehicles, such as tractors, cranes, bulldozers and excavators, had been shipped in to assist in the operations.

On Friday, a frantic mother in the Mediterranean city of Kahramanmaras told VOA Turkish that she has been waiting four days for a team to help locate her four missing children.

“Since yesterday, we have been calling their names, but we didn’t respond,” Ilkay Balt said of her 18-month-old sons Onur Ali, Tayfun, Azia, and Eylul. “I am asking those from here, these soldiers here, please look for them. They say it is not a mission we can do. Why is there no staff here then?”

Search sites were also the scene of some ceremonies where people were found alive.

In Gaziantep, the Associated Press reported that Adnan Mehmet Korkut, 17, was pulled from the rubble of the basement. He had been trapped for 94 hours, forced to drink his own urine in order to survive.

“Thank God I have arrived,” he said, hugging his mother and others who bent down to kiss and cuddle him as he was being loaded into an ambulance.

The Swiss ambassador to the United Nations told reporters that its rescue teams, who joined the effort on Monday, rescued a mother and her six-month-old baby on Friday in Hatay province.

A rescuer takes care of a little girl who was rescued four days after an earthquake, in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, February 10, 2023.

“A glimmer of hope,” Ambassador Pascale Bereswell told reporters.

Devastation

The success stories have been overshadowed by the sheer death toll. Morgues and cemeteries in the area are struggling to cope, and bodies lie wrapped in blankets, rugs and tarps on the streets of some towns.

The destruction is unimaginable.

“I have never seen such an earthquake in the world before. The city was destroyed,” survivor Yusuf Demir told Turkish VOA in the southeastern city of Adiyaman. “There is no place that can be called a city. Adiyaman is now a place that has been erased from the map.”

A doctor in Adiyaman, Aydin Şirin, told VOA’s Turkish service that people needed disinfectants in aid packages to prevent possible epidemics after the earthquake.

At least, from now on, organizations that send aid must send us disinfectants. We don’t have water. “The antiseptics are very valuable,” Shirin said.

Aid workers warn that the earthquakes have left millions homeless. Night temperatures drop below freezing in many of the affected areas. In Turkey, people crowded into government shelters, shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centers, while others spent the night outside wrapped in blankets huddled around bonfires.

Earthquakes have struck an area damaged on both sides of the border by more than a decade of civil war in Syria.

On the Syrian side, the area of ​​influence is split between government-held territory and the last opposition-held enclave in the country, flanked by Russian-backed government forces. The United Nations refugee agency estimates that up to 5.3 million people are left homeless in Syria. Meanwhile, Turkey is home to millions of refugees who have fled conflict, many of whom live near the epicenter.

A volunteer distributes meals following the devastating earthquake in Latakia, Syria, on February 10, 2023. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria displaced millions in war-torn Syria.

In Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has declared a cease-fire in its separatist insurgency.

humanitarian response

UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths visited the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Friday. He met with the head of the National Disaster Agency, Governor Yunus Sezer, and other senior officials.

The United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team (UNDAC) has been integrated into the Turkish Disaster Management Operations Center so that there is better coordination.

Griffiths will go to Aleppo and Damascus in Syria to assess needs and the UN response.

On Friday, his office announced an additional $25 million for earthquake relief efforts in Syria from the organization’s Central Emergency Relief Fund. This is in addition to the $25 million he released on Tuesday from the same account.

The United Nations said that a second aid convoy, consisting of 14 trucks from the International Organization for Migration, crossed Friday at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing from Turkey into northwestern Syria, loaded with shelter and non-food items. The first convoy of six trucks arrived on Thursday. The road from the Help Center in Gaziantep to Bab al-Hawa was damaged in the earthquakes and temporarily closed.

The United Nations is authorized by the UN Security Council to use only one border crossing – Bab al-Hawa – to transport humanitarian supplies from Turkey to areas outside the control of the Syrian government in the north of the country.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for more access and told reporters Thursday he would be “very happy” if the Security Council agreed to allow more crossing points to be used.

Turkey said it was working to open two new roads in rebel-held areas of Syria.

Before the earthquakes, 15.3 million Syrians were in need of humanitarian aid due to war and economic crisis. The United Nations said the earthquakes affected 10.9 million Syrians.

The Pentagon said on Friday that the US European Command has deployed military capabilities, personnel and equipment to assist the Turkish government in search and rescue efforts. On Thursday, one of its teams arrived at Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey at Ankara’s request, to assess how the US military can quickly respond with much-needed capabilities and equipment.

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