Rescue teams in Turkey and northern Syria fought against the clock and the cold on Tuesday to search the rubble for survivors of Monday’s violent earthquake, whose toll has already exceeded 6,000 deaths.
International aid should begin to arrive on Tuesday in the areas affected by the earthquake and its aftershocks. The first tremor, early Monday morning, reached magnitude 7.8 and was felt as far as Lebanon, Cyprus and northern Iraq.
In Turkey, the death toll rose to 4,544, according to the latest balance from the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority. Vice President Fuat Oktay said there were more than 20,534 injured.
In Syria, at least 1,712 people have died and more than 3,640 have been injured, according to estimates by the Damascus authorities and rescue teams in rebel areas.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decreed a state of emergency for a period of three months in ten southeastern provinces hit by the quake.
Based on the maps of the affected area, a person in charge of the World Health Organization (WHO), Adelheid Marschang, indicated that “23 million people are exposed” to the consequences of the earthquake, “including five million vulnerable people.”
“It’s a race against the clock”, warned the director general of the institution, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Sometimes with bare hands, rescuers continued the dramatic search for survivors through the night, braving cold, rain or snow and the risk of further landslides.
In Jindires, a Syrian town on the border with Turkey, a newborn, still with the umbilical cord attached to her deceased mother, was found alive in the rubble of a building.
Further south, in Aleppo, Mahmud al Ali waited by a destroyed building. “My mother-in-law, my father-in-law and two of their children (are trapped),” said. “We are sitting here, in the cold and the rain, waiting for the rescuers to start digging.”
In Hatay province, southern Turkey, a 7-year-old girl was rescued alive after being trapped under a mountain of rubble. “Where is my mother?said the little girl, in her dust-stained pink pajamas, in the arms of a lifeguard.
Ghanaian footballer Christian Atsu, a former Málaga and Chelsea player who signed for Hatayspor in September, was found alive among the remains of a building.
international first aid
Bad weather conditions in the Anatolian region complicate rescue efforts and darken the prospects for survivors, who warm up in tents or by makeshift bonfires.
International aid to Turkey is due to start arriving on Tuesday with the first rescue teams coming from France and Qatar.
US President Joe Biden promised his Turkish counterpart “all the necessary help, whatever it may be”.
The French contingent intends to reach Kahramanmaras, in the area of the epicenter, a region that is difficult to access and buried under snow.
China announced on Tuesday the shipment of aid of US$ 5.9 million, which will include groups specialized in relief in urban environments, medical teams and emergency supplies.
According to Erdogan, 45 countries offered help, including Ukraine, which announced sending 87 rescuers to Turkey, despite being at war with Russia.
Instead, the call launched by the Syrian government received for now a response from Moscow, its ally, which promised relief teams “in the next few hours”, in addition to 300 Russian soldiers who are already in place to help with the rescue. .
The UN also reacted, but insisted that the aid must reach the entire Syrian population, including the part that is not under Damascus control.
The Syrian Red Crescent urged the European Union to lift sanctions against the regime.
sleeping rough
The balances on both sides of the border do not stop increasing and, taking into account the magnitude of the destruction, they may follow the same trend.
In Turkey alone, the authorities counted almost 5,000 collapsed buildings.
In addition, the radical drop in temperatures carries an additional risk of hypothermia for the injured and those trapped under the rubble.
On Monday, up to 185 aftershocks were registered, in addition to the two main shocks: one of 7.8 in the middle of the night (04H17 local) and the other of magnitude 7.5 at noon.
Aftershocks continued into the early hours of Tuesday. The strongest, of magnitude 5.5, occurred at 6:13 local time (3:13 GMT) 9 km southeast of Gölbasi (southern Turkey).
The Turkish authorities set up gyms, schools and mosques to house the survivors. But for fear of new earthquakes, many inhabitants preferred to spend the night in the open.
“Everyone is afraid”, assured in Sanliurfa (southeastern Turkey) Mustafa Koyuncu, a 55-year-old man who spent the night with his wife and five children in the family car.
It is the most important earthquake in Turkey since the one that occurred on August 17, 1999, which caused the death of 17,000 people, a thousand of them in Istanbul.
Source: AFP
Source: Gestion
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