As the death toll from the Turkey-Syria earthquake exceeds 5,100, Erdogan proclaims a state of emergency.
The severe winter weather impedes both the search and rescue operations as well as the delivery of relief, leaving some areas without access to fuel and electricity.
ANTAKYA:
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday proclaimed a state of emergency in ten provinces affected by two earthquakes that left a path of devastation through a significant portion of southern Turkey and neighboring Syria and claimed more than 5,100 lives.
A day after the earthquakes, rescuers were battling against time to extract people out of the wreckage of collapsed buildings while working in difficult conditions.
The number of fatalities appeared to be significantly on the rise as the disaster’s scope became more and more clear. It was thought that thousands of youngsters may have been slaughtered, according to a UN official.
The magnitude 7.8 earthquake, the deadliest in Turkey since 1999, and another one an hour later destroyed hundreds of structures, destroyed hospitals and schools, and left tens of thousands of people injured or homeless in many Turkish and Syrian cities.
Rescue operations and the distribution of relief were impeded by the harsh winter weather, which also made the situation for the homeless considerably worse. There were fuel and energy shortages in several locations.
Aid workers expressed particular worry about the situation in Syria, which is already experiencing a humanitarian crisis following a nearly 12-year civil war.
In a speech on Tuesday, Erdogan named the 10 affected Turkish regions a disaster area and proclaimed a three-month rule of emergency there. As a result, the president and cabinet will be able to adopt new laws without consulting parliament and to restrict or suspend rights and freedoms.
In order to temporarily lodge those affected by the earthquakes, the government intended to open hotels in Antalya, a popular tourist destination to the west, according to Erdogan, who will be running for president in a three-month election.
Erdogan reported that 3,549 people had died in Turkey. The government and a rescue service in the northwest of the country, which is controlled by the insurgency, put the death toll in Syria at just over 1,600.
In the days following the earthquake in the rebel-held Syrian town of Azaz, volunteers arrange mattresses in a temporary shelter inside a sports complex on February 6, 2023. IMAGES: REUTERS
In Turkey’s Skenderun on February 6, 2023, cennet Sucu is found alive beneath the hospital’s crumbled wreckage. picture Reuters
In Iskenderun, Turkey, on February 6, 2023, Cennet Sucu is found alive beneath the hospital that has fallen. REUTERS PHOTO
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Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east, and Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south, are around 450 km (280 miles) and 300 km, respectively, apart. According to Turkish authorities, 13.5 million people were impacted in these regions.
As far south as Hama, some 100 kilometres from the epicentre, Syrian officials have recorded fatalities.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, declared in Geneva that “time is running out.” The likelihood of discovering survivors who are still alive decreases with each passing minute and hour.
People in the area waited in agony by piles of rubble, clinging to the hope that friends and family may be found alive while rescuers laboured through the night and into the following morning looking for survivors.
A woman’s voice was heard pleading for aid behind a pile of rubble in the Turkish city of Antakya, which serves as the provincial seat of Hatay province close to the Syrian border. A young child’s lifeless body was discovered nearby by Reuters journalists.
Deniz, the resident’s name, wrung his hands in despair while sobbing in the rain.
They are creating noise, but no one has arrived, he claimed. “We are saddened beyond words. My God… They are screaming. They are pleading for our help, but we are unable to intervene. How do we rescue them? Since the morning, there has been no one.”
Families slept in automobiles parked in a row on the streets.
Ayla explained that she had gone from Gaziantep to Hatay on Monday in search of her mother as she stood by the remains of an eight-story building. The ruins were being worked on by firefighters from Istanbul.
She stated, “So far, there have been no survivors.”
20,426 people were hurt in the earthquake, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), while 5,775 buildings were demolished.
In Turkiye’s southern port of Iskenderun, a sizable fire was still raging on Tuesday. The exact death toll is probably far higher than the current total because drone footage from Hatay revealed hundreds of collapsed residential buildings.
The earthquakes “may have killed hundreds of children,” according to UNICEF spokesperson James Elder in Geneva.
He said that hundreds of hospitals, schools, and other medical and educational facilities had been destroyed or severely damaged.
The most vulnerable population were Syrian refugees in northwest Syria and Turkey, according to Elder.
“Terrorizing scenario”
Abdallah al Dahan reported that numerous families were having funerals on Tuesday in the Syrian city of Hama.
Dahan, who was reached by phone, described the situation as “terrifying in every way.” Despite everything that has happened to us, “this is unlike anything I have ever seen in my entire life.”
Families whose homes were devastated were welcomed into mosques.
According to state news agency SANA, 812 people have died in areas controlled by the Syrian government. More than 790 people were killed in the rebel-held northwest, according to the Syrian civil defence, also known as the White Helmets, a rescue organisation famous for rescuing civilians from the wreckage of government airstrikes.
Despite many attempts, organisation leader Raed al-Saleh remarked, “our teams are unable to respond to the calamity and the significant number of collapsed structures.”
He warned that there was not much time left to save hundreds of families who were buried under the debris of collapsed buildings and that urgent assistance from international organisations was required.
Fuel shortages and the severe weather, according to a UN humanitarian official in Syria, are challenges.
UN resident coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih told Reuters from Damascus: “The infrastructure is broken, the routes that we used for humanitarian work are ruined.”
A lack of internet access and damaged highways linking some of the most severely affected Turkish cities, which are home to millions of people, also hampered efforts to evaluate the situation and organise aid.
