Turkish president Recep Tayyp Erdogan in Istanbul and Syria: the wake of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake and the worst tsunami in the world
Rescue workers in Turkey and Syria continued to search for survivors Thursday, even though the window to find people alive was closing.
Turkish President Recep Tayypi Erdogan, on a tour of quake-stricken cities, raised the death toll in Turkey to 21,848, which pushed the total number of dead across the region, including government and rebel-held parts of Syria, to 25,401.
The magnitude 7.8 quake, which occurred in southern Turkey and collapsed buildings in that country and Syria, is the deadliest seismic event in the world in more than a decade. A 2011 earthquake in Japan triggered a tsunami that killed more than 19,000 people.
On Wednesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Kahramanmaras, a city near the epicenter of the quake, telling survivors that “we are face to face with a great disaster.” There is growing public anger that the rescue response has been slow, and Erdogan acknowledged there were shortfalls by his government in the immediate aftermath of the quake. The president said that winter weather and the destruction of infrastructure were complicating factors.
Istanbul’s stock exchange closed after initial trading showed rapid declines and a circuit breaker was triggered. Inflation in Turkey was already out of control.
The Narli family in Kaharamanmaras, Turkey, cries out for help: A tragic earthquake death toll emerges
Dramatic rescues were being broadcasted on Turkish television, including the rescue of the Narli family in central Kaharamanmaras, which took 133 hours to complete. First, 12-year-old Nehir Naz Narli was saved, then both of her parents.
In the evening, there was a rescue of five people from a mound of debris in the town of Nurdagi, in Gaziantep province. Rescuers shouted, “God is Great!” The father was lifted to safety.
He spoke about the problem of almost no stone remaining in some parts of the settlements near the fault line.
In the 133rd hour after the earthquake, a woman in her 20s was pulled out of the rubble by another person in the same hour. Ahead of her rescue, police announced that people shouldn’t cheer or clap in order to not interfere with other rescue efforts nearby. She was on a stretcher and covered with a blanket. Rescuers were hugging. Some shouted ” God is great!”
A 3-year-old girl and her father were pulled from the debris of Islahiye in Gaziantep province around an hour earlier, as well as a 7-year-old girl in Hatay.
The rescues gave shimmers of joy after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake and powerful aftershock killed tens of thousands of people, injured another 80,000 and left millions homeless.
Not everything ended so well. Rescuers reached a 13-year-old girl inside the debris of a collapsed building in Hatay province early Saturday and intubated her. But she died before the medical teams could amputate a limb and free her from the rubble, Hurriyet newspaper reported.
Even though experts say trapped people can live for a week or more, the odds of finding more survivors were quickly waning. Rescuers were shifting to thermal cameras to help identify life amid the rubble, a sign that any remaining survivors could be too weak to call for help.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1156313344/turkey-syria-earthquake-death-toll-survivors
An Indian Army Vets’ Perspective on Turkey’s Syria-Earthquake-Death-Toll-Survivors
A group of Indian Army vets started treating the injured in a temporary field hospital in the city of Iskenderun, where a main hospital was demolished.
Wincing in pain, he said he had been rescued from his collapsed apartment building in the nearby city of Antakya within hours of the quake on Monday. He was released after receiving first aid and no treatment for his injuries.
″I buried (everyone that I lost), then I came here,” Canbulat said, counting his dead relatives: “My daughter is dead, my sibling died, my aunt and her daughter died, and the wife of her son” who was 8 ½ months pregnant.
A graveyard is being built on the outskirts of Antakya. Backhoes and bulldozers dug pits in the field on the northeastern edge of the city as trucks and ambulances loaded with black body bags arrived continuously. Motorists were told not to take photos by soldiers on the road next to them.
A worker with Turkey’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, who did not wish to be identified, said around 800 bodies were brought to the cemetery on the first day it was open. By midday on Saturday, he said, as many as 2,000 had been buried.
“People who are coming out from the rubble now, it’s a miracle if they survive. Most of the people that come out now are dead, and they come here,” he said.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/11/1156313344/turkey-syria-earthquake-death-toll-survivors
United States-Algebraic Assistance for Syria After the September 13 Earthquake-Injury: Assistance to the Syrian Government and a Base of Support for the Syrian President
Many people have no place to stay as temperatures remained below freezing. The Turkish government has distributed millions of hot meals and other items, but is not able to reach all of the people in need.
The situation in Syria is so dire that the U.S. softened its sanctions for three months to make sure that earthquake relief efforts don’t get hampered by those restrictions. Fear of running afoul of sanctions may have slowed the delivery of much-needed aid.
President Bashar Assad and his wife have visited injured quake victims in a hospital in the coastal city of Latakia, a base of support for the Syrian leader.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, arrived in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo on Saturday, bringing with him 35 tons of medical equipment, state news agency SANA reported. He said that another plane carrying 30 tons of medical equipment will arrive in the next few days.
Aid agencies are working to help millions of people with food, tents, warm winter clothing, blankets, mattresses, medical supplies and mental health support. There’s concern, though, that needs arising from other crises, like the war in Ukraine and Syria’s own civil war, could affect assistance over time.
Donor fatigue for the conflict in Syria had set in well before this month’s earthquakes. The United Nations Children’s Fund’s annual appeal for Syria didn’t meet even half of its goal.
Donor support is critical for UNICEF to continue its work of reuniting unaccompanied children with relatives, Mardini says, and distributing sanitation services and safe drinking water to people to avert the spread of diseases in quake-stricken areas.
She states that it’s vital for their support to reach us so that we can bring aid where it is needed most.
President Joe Biden announced $85 million for Turkey and Syria days after the earthquake that has killed more than 44,000 people in the two countries. A search and rescue team, medical supplies and equipment have been sent by the U.S.
“When you see the extent of the damage, the number of buildings, the number of apartments, the number of homes that have been destroyed, it’s going to take a massive effort to rebuild,” the top U.S. diplomat said after the helicopter tour.
He spoke to NPR at the World Government Summit. He’d just returned to the United Arab Emirates from Syria, where the WHO is delivering tons of medical supplies such as amputation equipment, intravenous fluids and medicine.
The World Health Organization estimates that 200,000 people are now homeless in government-controlled Aleppo, where the distribution of international aid is controlled by the regime of Bashar Assad.
The U.N.’s humanitarian relief coordination, Martin Roberts, visited areas affected by the earthquakes and described their situation as “unspeakable heartache.”
A video detailing the psychological trauma among Syrian survivors was shared by a Syrians with millions of followers on social media.
Omar Abu Lebda described visiting Antakya and meeting a 13-year-old boy who’d survived three days under the rubble. He had been living in a car with his sister and father after he injured his leg. Another sister and his mother had died in the earthquakes.
Abu Lebda said he saw a Syrian man abruptly leave a bus after he claimed he’d heard his two children calling for him.
U.S. Mission to Incirlik, Turkey During the Super-Earthquake: Secretary of State on a Helicopter Tour
Meanwhile, the U.N. refugee agency says it closed last year with only 56% of its funding needs met, leaving a $4.7 billion budget shortfall. The agency, which assists millions of Syrian refugees, says to date it has received just 15% of its global funding requirements for 2023 — a budget that’s yet to factor in the impact of the earthquakes.
The United States Secretary of State took a helicopter tour of one of the hardest hit areas of southern Turkey and northern Syria on Sunday, and pledged another $100 million in aid.
The U.S.-Turkish facility at Incirlik Air Base, which has coordinated the distribution of disaster aid, is going to be a long-term effort. “The search and rescue, unfortunately, is coming to an end. There will be a massive rebuilding operation once the recovery is over.
There is an expected meeting with the President of Turkey, as well as discussions with Turkish officials, later on Sunday in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. Blinken is expected to discuss the effects of the earthquake and the efforts to join NATO with Turkey, which has delayed.
The Foreign Minister of Turkey was on the air with him. He would meet with both the U.S. and Turkish service personnel, as well as Turkish military families affected by the earthquake.
Incirlik, home to the U.S. Air Force’s 39th Air Base Wing, has been a crucial logistics center for aid distribution. In order to ensure those in need get the supplies they need, supplies have been flown into the base by helicopter and truck.