Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have killed more than 15,000 people so far. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday’s “shortcomings” in relief and rescue work. Erdogan visited one of the worst-hit areas of the earthquake.
In relief work in Kahramanmaras, the epicentre of the earthquake, he said, “Of course, there are shortcomings. It is visible. It is not possible to be prepared for this kind of disaster.”
Turkey struggles to find food and shelter
Thousands of buildings have collapsed due to the earthquake. An unknown number of people are still trapped. The severe cold has also hampered the relief work. People are helplessly asking for help, but help is not available. Semir Koban, a kindergarten teacher in Hatay, Turkey, said, “My nephew, my sister-in-law and my sister-in-law’s sister are buried under the rubble. We can’t reach them.
We try to talk to them, but they don’t answer.” Giving… We are waiting for help. It’s been 48 hours now.” On the other hand, even three days after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, the rescue team kept trying to get the survivors out of the debris. This earthquake is one of the deadliest earthquakes of this century. Twitter was also down on Turkish mobile networks, according to AFP journalists and the Netblox web monitoring group. Earthquake survivors are struggling to find food and shelter in Turkey.
Saved the kids
Rescuers run out of time to find survivors. It’s been 72 hours since the earthquake. According to disaster experts, it is tough to survive after this. Still, on Wednesday, rescuers pulled children out from under a collapsed building in Turkey’s Hatay province. Rescuer Alperen Cetinkaya said, “Suddenly we heard voices and thanks to the digger… Immediately we heard three people’s voices at the same time.” “We are expecting more people to survive. The chances of people getting out alive are very high,” he said. Officials and medics said 12,391 people were killed in Turkey and at least 2,992 in Syria in Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor. The total death toll has gone up to 15,383.
The Numbers will continue to grow rapidly
Experts fear that this number will continue to grow rapidly. The European Union is planning a donor conference in Brussels in March to mobilize international aid for Syria and Turkey. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter: “Together we are now racing against time to save lives.” Von der Leyen said, “When a tragedy like this befalls people, no one should be left alone.”
‘People dying every second’
Because of the scale of the damage and the lack of aid arriving in some areas, survivors said they felt alone in responding to the disaster. “Even the buildings that did not collapse were seriously damaged,” said Hassan, a resident who did not give his full name, in the rebel-held Syrian town of Jindayaris. About 400 people were buried under each collapsed building. -500 people are trapped, only 10 people are trying to get them out and there is no machinery.” The White Helmets have appealed for international help in a “race against time” in a major effort to rescue people buried under rubble in rebel-held areas of Syria.
Relief stock will run out soon
The White Helmets have been working hard since the earthquake to pull survivors from under the rubble of dozens of buildings that remain outside government control in war-torn Syria’s northwest. A leading UN official has called for aid to be facilitated in rebel-held areas in the northwest. He has said that the relief stock will end soon. “Put politics aside and let us do our humanitarian work,” El-Mustafa Benlamlih, the UN’s Resident Syria Coordinator, told AFP in an interview.
Syria appeals for help from the European Union
The bloc’s commissioner for crisis management, Janez Lenarcik, said aid to Syria was a delicate issue. The Damascus government has officially requested help from the European Union. A decade of civil war and Syrian-Russian airstrikes had already destroyed the hospitals. The economy had collapsed and fueled power, fuel and water shortages. Lenarcic said the European Commission was “encouraging” EU member states to respond to Syria’s request for medical supplies and food while monitoring to ensure that President Bashar al-Assad’s government could not take advantage of this help.
Biggest tragedy since 1939
Dozens of countries have pledged to help, including the United States, China and Gulf states. Search teams as well as relief materials have already arrived. The European Union has rushed to send rescue teams to Turkey after Monday’s devastating earthquake near the Syrian border hit the country, but it initially offered only minimal aid to Syria as Assad’s government remains under EU sanctions since 2011.
Due to the brutal crackdown on the protestors, which had turned into a civil war. The Turkey-Syria border is one of the most active earthquake zones in the world. Monday’s earthquake was the biggest seen in Turkey since 1939. In 1939, 33,000 people were killed in the eastern Erzincan province. In 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake killed over 17,000 people.
