Earthquake death toll passes 7,000 as rescue efforts go on
THE death toll from a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and multiple aftershocks rose to more than 7,200 yesterday as more bodies were pulled from the rubble of collapsed buildings.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged the UK’S “steadfast support” to Turkey in a phone call with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said Sunak had also expressed his “deep condolences for the tragic loss of life” caused by the earthquake.
The latest death toll from the quake in Turkey now stands at 5,400, while the figure over the border in Syria is 1,800.
The earthquake struck early on Monday, bringing down thousands of buildings. Rescuers were racing frantically to find more survivors, but their efforts were being impeded by temperatures below freezing and some 200 aftershocks, which made the search through unstable structures perilous.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 10 cities in the south of his country as disaster zones and said there will be a three-month state of emergency in each, due to the damage caused.
He also thanked the 70 countries who have sent and offered help, including the US, UK and South Korea
The EU said it had now mobilised more than 30 search and rescue or medical teams to send to Turkey.
They are being provided by 19 member states – plus Montenegro and Albania.
In total that will mean more than 1,200 rescue workers heading to the affected areas and 70 detection dogs.
Nurgul Atay told the Associated
Press she could hear her mother’s voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, but that her and others efforts to get into the ruins had been futile without any rescue crews and heavy equipment to help.
“If only we could lift the concrete slab we’d be able to reach her,” she said. “My mother is 70 years old, she won’t be able to withstand this for long.”
Across Hatay province, just southwest of the earthquake’s epicentre, officials say as many as 1,500 buildings were destroyed and many people reported relatives being trapped under the rubble, with no aid or rescue teams arriving.
In areas where teams worked, occasional cheers broke out through the night as survivors were brought out of the rubble. The quake, which was centred in Turkey’s south-eastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo.
The medical aid organisation
Doctors Without Borders confirmed yesterday that one of its staff members was among the dead after his house in Syria’s Idlib province collapsed, and that others had lost family members.
“We are very shocked and saddened by the impact of this disaster on the thousands of people touched by it, including our colleagues and their families,” said Sebastien Gay, the group’s head of mission in Syria.
Mr Gay said health facilities in northern Syria were overwhelmed, with medical personnel working around “around the clock to respond to the huge numbers of wounded.”
In Turkey’s Hatay province, thousands of people sheltered in sports centres or fair halls, while others spent the night outside, huddled in blankets around fires.
Turkey has large numbers of troops in the border region with Syria and has tasked the military to aid in the rescue efforts, including setting up tents for the homeless and a field hospital in Hatay province.
Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said a humanitarian aid brigade based in Ankara and eight military search and rescue teams had also been deployed.
A navy ship docked yesterday at the province’s port of Iskenderun, where a hospital collapsed, to transport survivors in need of medical care to the nearby city of Mersin.
Thick, black smoke rose from another area of the port, where firefighters have not yet been able to douse a fire that broke out among shipping containers that were toppled by the earthquake.
In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, a provincial capital about 20 miles from the epicentre, people took refuge in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.
At least 3,381 people were killed in 10 Turkish provinces, with more than 20,000 injured, according to the latest figures from Turkish authorities yesterday.
The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed to 769 people, with some 1,450 injured, according to the Health Ministry.
In the country’s rebel-held northwest, groups that operate there said at least 450 people died, with many hundreds injured.
We are very shocked and saddened by the impact of this disaster on thousands of people