Turkish rescuers find survivors under rubble 4 days after earthquake
2023.02.10 00:54
Turkish rescuers find survivors under rubble 4 days after earthquake
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – Four days after a major earthquake that killed at least 20,000 people in Turkey and Syria’s neighbor, the rescue of a few survivors from the rubble of buildings buoyed exhausted search teams.
The tremors, the deadliest in the region in decades, left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and gripped by cold, hunger, and despair.
During the night, a number of people were rescued from the rubble of buildings, including a 10-year-old boy and his mother after 90 hours in the Hatay province district of Samandag.
Asya Donmez, a seven-year-old from Hatay, was rescued after 95 hours and taken to a hospital, according to the state-owned Anadolu news agency.
However, there were fewer and fewer hopes that many more people would survive in the rubble of thousands of collapsed buildings in the region’s towns and cities.
The number of people killed by the 7.8-magnitude quake and several powerful aftershocks in both countries has surpassed the 17,000 people killed in a similar 1999 quake in northwest Turkey.
It is now the seventh most deadly natural disaster of this century, trailing only Japan’s earthquake and tsunami of 2011 and the 31,000 people killed in a 2003 earthquake in Iran.
The catastrophe, according to a Turkish official, posed “very serious difficulties” for the May 14 election, in which President Tayyip Erdogan was anticipated to face his most difficult challenge in two decades of power.
The disaster is likely to influence the vote if it goes ahead, as resentment over delays in aid delivery and the beginning of the rescue effort is simmering.
From Turkey, the first U.N. convoy carrying aid to devastated Syrians crossed the border.
Munira Mohammad, a mother of four who fled Aleppo following the earthquake and lives in the Idlib province of Syria, stated: We require supplies and heating because all of the children are present. We couldn’t sleep last night because it was so cold. It’s terrible.”
In the middle of winter, hundreds of thousands of people in both countries have been left without housing. Numerous individuals have constructed crude shelters in supermarket parking lots, mosques, along roadsides, or among the ruins.
Frequently, survivors are in need of warmth, water, and food.
According to a report from Turkey’s Bogazici University, forty percent of the buildings in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of Monday’s main quake, have been damaged.
People went through donated clothing in cardboard boxes at a gas station near Kemalpasa, Turkey. Journalists from Reuters observed people huddled around fires along roadsides and in destroyed garages and warehouses in the port city of Iskenderun.
According to the authorities, approximately 6,500 buildings in Turkey were damaged and collapsed.
According to Vice President Fuat Oktay, the death toll in Turkey had increased to 17,674 by Thursday night. According to the government and a rescue service in the rebel-held northwest, more than 3,300 people have died in Syria, which has already been devastated by nearly 12 years of civil war.
Ibrahim Khalil Menkaween carried a white body bag through the rubble-strewn streets of the devastated Syrian town of Jandaris. He claimed to have lost his wife, two brothers, and seven other members of his family.
He stated, “I’m holding this bag for when they bring out my brother, the young son of my brother, and both of their wives.” The circumstance is very dire. And there is no assistance.”
According to Turkish officials, 13.5 million people were affected in a region that stretches roughly 450 kilometers (280 miles) from Adana to Diyarbakir in the east. There were fatalities in Syria as far south as Hama, 250 kilometers from the epicentre.
Turkish broadcasters showed rescue workers searching a collapsed building in the city of Adiyaman for survivors in the cold and darkness.
As they listened for any sound of life coming from the mangled concrete, teams called for silence, asking reporters to remain silent and directing all vehicles, generators, and generators to stop.
Even as they could hear screams for assistance, numerous individuals in Turkey have expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of support, expertise, and equipment to rescue the trapped.
According to the Israeli military, Greece provided thousands of tents, beds, and blankets, and Israeli satellite intelligence was assisting in the mapping of the disaster zones in Turkey using technology primarily utilized for special operations.
Turkey receives $1.78 billion in relief and recovery financing from the World Bank, of which $780 million will be made available right away. Turkey and Syria will receive $85 million in urgent humanitarian assistance from the United States Agency for International Development.
Relief efforts in Syria are made more difficult by a conflict that has divided the country and destroyed its infrastructure.
The Bab Al Hawa crossing was where the U.N. aid convoy entered Syria, providing a lifeline to opposition-controlled areas where approximately 4 million people were already relying on humanitarian assistance, many of whom had been displaced by the war.
Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, called for increased humanitarian access to Syria, stating that he would be “very happy” if the organization could utilize multiple border crossings to deliver aid.
Turkey’s delivery of aid to rebel-held areas is seen by the Syrian government as a breach of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
While President Bashar al-Assad has presided over emergency meetings regarding the earthquake, he has not given a speech or given a news conference to the nation.
