Rescue aid at quake

SEARCH teams and emergency aid from around the world poured into Turkey and Syria yesterday as rescuers working in freezing temperatures dug – sometimes with their bare hands – through the remains of buildings flattened by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake.

The death toll soared above 5,000 and was still expected to rise.

But with the damage spread over a wide area, the massive relief operation often struggled to reach devastated towns, and voices that had been crying out from the rubble fell silent.

“We could hear their voices, they were calling for help,” said Ali Silo, whose two relatives could not be saved in the Turkish town of Nurdag.

In the end, it was left to Silo, a Syrian who arrived from Hama a decade ago, and other residents to recover the bodies and those of two other victims.

Monday’s quake cut a swath of destruction that stretched hundreds of miles across south-eastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria, toppling thousands of buildings.

Aftershocks then rattled tangled piles of metal and concrete, making the search efforts perilous, while freezing temperatures made them ever more urgent.

More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the debris in Turkey alone, and some 380,000 have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, said Turkish vice president Fuat Oktay.

Many took to social media to plead for assistance for loved ones believed to be trapped under the rubble – and Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying all calls were being ‘collected meticulously’ and the information relayed to search teams.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said 13 million of the country’s 85 million were affected in some way – and declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces in order to manage the response.

“This is a crisis on top of multiple crises in the affected region,” Mr Marschang said in Geneva.

Teams from nearly 30 countries around the world headed for Turkey or Syria.

As promises of help flooded in, Turkey said it would only allow vehicles carrying aid to enter the worst-hit provinces of Kahramanmaras, Adiyaman and Hatay in order to speed the effort.