After the quakes
The death toll from the 6 February earthquakes rose to more than 40,000 this week. Of these deaths, more than 35,000 have occurred in Turkey, making the twin quakes the deadliest such event in the country’s history; the toll in Syria has climbed above 5,500, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency. These figures are expected to rise considerably as ongoing rescue and salvage operations uncover further bodies, and as the destruction wreaked by the quakes leads some survivors to succumb to cold or disease. More than 47,000 buildings were either destroyed or so badly damaged as to require demolition. Millions of people have been left homeless in freezing conditions. Hans Kluge, the World Health Organisation’s Europe director, said relief workers were facing “the worst natural disaster in the region for a century”.
The frantic rescue efforts produced some tales of miraculous escapes, with a few people being pulled alive from collapsed buildings more than a week after the quakes. Among those rescued was a newborn baby in northern Syria, who was still connected by an umbilical cord to her dead mother when she was freed from the rubble. But there were many more tragic cases of people who couldn’t be rescued in time, owing to a lack of heavy lifting equipment and the sheer scale of the devastation along the 100-mile faultline. In some areas, rescuers are leaving signs showing they have inspected ruins, writing “no sound” in Turkish, while relatives are leaving phone numbers to call when bodies are found.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who is due to stand for re-election in three months, sought to reassure his nation, saying it had overcome many disasters before and would “overcome this one, too”. But opposition figures criticised his government’s slow response to the crisis, claiming that the destruction was the result of “profiteering” by Erdogan and his allies in the construction sector. Officials in Turkey said 113 arrest warrants had been issued against contractors, in connection with the construction of substandard buildings that had collapsed in the quakes. Relief agencies have struggled to deliver aid to northern Syria, parts of which are controlled by groups that oppose the country’s authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad. But on Tuesday, Assad agreed for the first time during his nation’s 12-year civil war to open up more border crossings from Turkey so that more aid could flow to affected areas controlled by rebel groups.