Surviving the disaster in sub-zero temperatures, homeless and surrounded by death: “There is nothing”

The situation in the 10 Turkish provinces affected by the devastating earthquakes Monday worsens as time goes by and, while the number of deaths continues to rise, the survivors have trouble meeting their most basic needs with temperatures that reach -6 degrees.

Only in Turkey the dead, two days after the earthquakes, exceed 6,000 and there are more than 37,000 injured. Turkish journalists reporting from the affected cities of Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Iskenderun and Malatya early Wednesday, more than 48 hours after the quake, agree that there are Hundreds of collapsed buildings where no rescue team has arrived and people plead for help.

HalkTV reported live from Malatya that the surviving women, children and old people were in terrible conditions, without access to basic necessities and with temperatures several degrees below zero. AND despair grows because in some collapsed buildings the voices of trapped survivors can be heard who cannot be helped due to the lack of specialized equipment. “No one in the city can enter any building due to the danger of collapse. Going to the toilet, something so far simple, is a very big problem. There is no water at home or at the gas stations,” explains that television about the situation. “People are trying to warm up in their cars, but they can’t refill the tank because there is no fuel at the service stations,” he adds.

Yildirim Kurt, a farmer of the Nurhak district, in Kahramanmaras, one of the most affected areas, told EFE by telephone that until now no help had arrived to his small town.

Seyhan Asker, a reporter for Halk TVreported this morning from Islahiye, a town in Hatay of 60,000 inhabitants where his parents lived: “All the houses in the city have to be rebuilt. No one can even live in the houses that were not destroyed. Half of the houses in the village have been destroyed.”.

mustafa karawho lost his wife in Kahramanmaras in the collapse of a nine-story building, showed his outrage on Halk TV: “Is this State such a small thing? There is nothing. We cannot bury our dead. There are corpses everywhere.” “More than 900 buildings have collapsed. If each one has between eight and ten apartments, how many people are under the rubble? There is no electricity, no gasoline, people loot supermarkets. There is no food, no milk for the children,” complains that neighbor.