Turkey has declared state emergency due to large number earthquake victims
2023.02.07 13:53
Turkey has declared state emergency due to large number earthquake victims
By Kristina Sobol
Budrigannews.com – Two earthquakes that killed over 5,300 people and left a trail of destruction across a large portion of southern Turkey and neighboring Syria prompted Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to declare a state of emergency on Tuesday in 10 provinces.
Rescue workers working in harsh conditions struggled to rescue people from the rubble of collapsed buildings a day after the quakes struck.
The death toll appeared likely to rise significantly as the magnitude of the disaster became increasingly apparent. It was thought that thousands of children might have been killed, according to a UN official.
In addition, residents of several damaged Turkish cities expressed their dismay and anger at the authorities’, according to them, sluggish and inadequate response to the deadliest earthquake in Turkey since 1999.
“Not a single person is present.” Murat Alinak, whose Malatya home collapsed and whose relatives are missing, stated, “We are under the snow, without a home, without anything.” Where can I go, and what should I do?
Thousands of buildings, including hospitals, schools, and apartment blocks, were uprooted by Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, which was followed hours later by a second one that was almost as powerful.
In Turkey and northern Syria, tens of thousands of people were injured or left homeless.
The winter weather has hindered rescue and relief efforts and exacerbated the suffering of the homeless. There was no electricity or fuel in some areas.
Aid workers were particularly concerned about the situation in Syria, which has been ravaged by a humanitarian crisis for nearly a decade.
Erdogan declared a disaster zone and a state of emergency for three months in the ten affected Turkish provinces on Tuesday. The government will be able to limit or suspend rights and freedoms and enact new laws without having to go through parliament.
Erdogan, who is up for a national election in three months, stated that the government will open hotels in Antalya, the tourism capital, to temporarily house those affected by the earthquakes.
Erdogan stated that the death toll in Turkey had increased to 3,549. According to the government and a rescue agency in the insurgent-held northwest of Syria, the death toll was at least 1,712.
According to Turkish authorities, 13.5 million people were affected in a region that extended for approximately 300 kilometers (450 miles) from Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south and from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east.
Deaths have been reported by Syrian authorities as far south as Hama, approximately 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the epicenter.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the World Health Organization, stated in Geneva, “It’s now a race against time.” The likelihood of finding survivors alive decreases with each passing minute and hour.”
In Antakya, the capital of Hatay province bordering Syria, rescue teams were thin on the ground, and residents picked through debris themselves. As people waited in agony by mounds of rubble, rescuers toiled night and day across the region. Helmets, hammers, iron rods, rope, and hammers were requested by many.
After the earthquake, a 54-year-old woman by the name of Gulumser was rescued alive from an eight-story building 32 hours later.
After that, a different woman yelled at the rescue workers, ” My father was in the room she was in just behind her. Kindly save him.”
The workers explained that they needed an excavator to remove the wall first because they couldn’t get to the room from the front.
According to Turkish authorities, 9,000 troops and more than 12,000 search and rescue personnel are working in the affected areas. 70 nations are contributing personnel, supplies, and aid.
However, the disaster’s sheer magnitude is unsettling.
“The area is huge. As he loaded equipment onto a truck at Turkey’s Adana airport, German fire and rescue officer Johannes Gust said, “I haven’t seen anything like this before.”
According to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) of Turkey, the quake caused the destruction of 5,775 buildings and injured 20,426 people.
James Elder, UNICEF’s spokesperson, stated in Geneva: There may have been thousands of children killed by the earthquakes.”
Elder stated that Syrian refugees in Turkey and northwest Syria were among the most affected individuals.
According to Abdallah al Dahan, funerals for several families will take place on Tuesday in the Syrian city of Hama.
When contacted over the telephone, Dahan stated, “It’s a terrifying scene in every sense.” Despite everything that has happened to us, I have never witnessed anything like this in my entire life.”
Families whose homes had been destroyed were welcomed into mosques.
According to the Syrian state news agency SANA, the government-held provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, Idlib, and Tartous saw at least 812 deaths and 1,449 injuries.
The White Helmets rescue team reported that at least 900 people were killed and 2,300 were injured in the opposition-held northwest of Syria, with the death toll expected to “rise dramatically.”
Raed al-Saleh, the head of the group, stated, “There are a lot of efforts by our teams, but they are unable to respond to the catastrophe and the large number of collapsed buildings.”
He stated that international organizations must provide immediate assistance because time was running out to rescue hundreds of families trapped beneath the rubble of buildings.
Fuel shortages and harsh weather, according to a U.N. humanitarian official in Syria, were causing difficulties.
From Damascus, U.N. resident coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih stated to Reuters, “The infrastructure is damaged, the roads that we used to use for humanitarian work are damaged.”
The blaze that engulfed hundreds of shipping containers at Turkey’s Iskenderun port forced freight liners to divert their ships to other ports and halted operations. The fire was caused by earthquake damage, according to the maritime authority.
People expressed their dissatisfaction with what they claimed to be the absence of assistance as they searched for the missing in Turkey’s Malatya, where snow was thick on the ground.
They attempted to sort through the shattered homes caused by the earthquake without gloves or any special tools.
“The grandchildren of my in-laws are present. Two days have passed since we arrived. Sabiha Alinak stated, “We are devastated.”
“Where’s the state? We pleading with them. Let’s do it because we can save them. We have the resources to do it.
