Time is running out for rescuers who are still trying to find survivors in Turkey and Syria on Wednesday, two days after the terrible earthquake, the toll of which continues to grow, now exceeding 11,200 dead.
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In freezing cold, rescuers race against time to try to rescue survivors of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that shook southeastern Turkey at dawn on Monday and neighboring northern Syria.
Bad weather is complicating the task of rescue and the Turkish Interior Minister warned on Tuesday that the next 48 hours would be “crucial” to find survivors.
The road leading to the Turkish city of Antakya (the ancient Antioch), in the particularly affected province of Hatay, is congested with aid trucks, construction machinery and ambulances slaloming between private cars who are fleeing.
The city is on the ground, drowned in a thick cloud of dust due to the clearing machines digging through the rubble. As far as the eye can see, there are only collapsed or partially collapsed buildings. Even those who are still holding are deeply cracked and no one dares to stay there. “Antakya is over”, repeat the inhabitants.
In Gaziantep, a Turkish city near the epicenter, a resident has already lost hope of finding her aunt alive, buried under the rubble. “It’s too late. Now we are waiting for our dead,” she says.
International aid began arriving in Turkey on Tuesday, where national mourning was declared for seven days. The official death toll there currently stands at 6,957. This is already the worst death toll that Turkey has known since 1999, when 17,000 people died, including a thousand in Istanbul.
In Syria, 2,547 dead have been recorded at this stage. The toll is expected to “climb considerably as hundreds of people remain trapped under the rubble”, according to the White Helmets (civil protection volunteers) in the rebel areas.
«Where is the state?
On both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border, we are working to try to save lives. In Jandairis, on the Syrian side, a newborn baby was brought out alive from the rubble. This little girl was still connected by the umbilical cord to her mother, who died like all the other members of the family.
“We heard a noise while we were digging (…) we cleared the ground and found this little one, thank God,” a relative of the family, Khalil Sawadi, told AFP on Tuesday. The baby was taken to hospital and his condition is stable, according to a doctor interviewed by AFP.
But for Irmak, 15 is too late. His father, Mesut Hancer, silently shakes the hand of his dead child who emerges, inert, from the rubble of a building in Kahramanmaras. No aid, no relief had arrived Tuesday in this Turkish city of more than a million inhabitants, devastated and buried under the snow.
“Where is the state? Where is he? (…) It’s been two days and we haven’t seen anyone. (…) The children died of cold”, protests Ali, who is also waiting for reinforcements there, still hoping to see his brother and his nephew again, trapped in the ruins of their building.
In Sawran, in northern Syria, Mahmoud Brimo falls to his knees before a pile of ruins, the remains of his house. Not far away, a gray dome testifies that a mosque stood there. “Years of war hadn’t devastated us like this,” he laments, before adding: “We lost everything in an instant. We are totally destroyed”.
For fear of returning home, survivors have sought refuge at Turkey’s Gaziantep airport. “Now our lives are so marked by uncertainty. How am I going to take care of these children?” wonders Zahide Sutcu who fled his apartment with his two young children.
Twenty-three million people are “potentially exposed, including around five million vulnerable people”, warned the World Health Organization (WHO).
International aid
The first teams of foreign rescue workers arrived on Tuesday. According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who declared a state of emergency for three months in the ten provinces affected by the earthquake, 45 countries offered their help.
The European Union has mobilized 1,185 rescuers and 79 search dogs for Turkey from 19 Member States including France, Germany and Greece. For Syria, the EU is in contact with its humanitarian partners on the ground and funds aid operations.
US President Joe Biden has promised Mr. Erdogan “all the help he needs, whatever it is”. Two rescue teams were due to arrive in Turkey on Wednesday morning.
China announced Tuesday the sending of an aid of 5.9 million dollars as well as specialized rescue workers in urban areas, medical teams and emergency equipment.
Even Ukraine, despite the Russian invasion, announced the dispatch to Turkey of 87 rescuers.
The United Arab Emirates has pledged $100 million in aid and Saudi Arabia, which has had no ties with the Damascus regime since 2012, has announced an airlift to help affected populations in both countries.
In Syria, however, the appeal launched by the authorities in Damascus was mainly heard by its Russian ally. According to the army, more than 300 Russian soldiers are already on the scene to help the relief.
Washington said on Tuesday that it was working with local NGOs in Syria, insisting that its “funds will of course go to the Syrian people, not to the regime” in Damascus.
The earthquake hit the Bab al-Hawa crossing point, the only one for almost all humanitarian aid to rebel areas in Syria sent from Turkey, according to the UN.
The Syrian Red Crescent, which operates in government areas, called on the EU to lift sanctions against Damascus.