Twitter has become inaccessible on Turkey’s main mobile phone providers amid mounting online criticism of the authorities’ handling of the tragedy.
On the ground, rescuers have been working in freezing cold for two days after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that shook southeast Turkey and neighboring northern Syria at dawn on Monday, followed by powerful aftershocks.
Bad weather complicates the task of rescue while the first 72 hours are crucial to find survivors, according to the head of the Turkish Red Crescent, Kerem Kinik.
A woman bursts into tears as rescuers evacuate the body of a victim from the ruins of a collapsed building, in Adana, Turkey, February 6, 2023. The report by our special correspondent in Turkey, Marie-Eve Bédard.
Photo: Getty Images / Agence France-Presse / Can Erok
In the Turkish province of Hatay (south), hard hit by the earthquake, children and adolescents have been removed from the rubble of a building. Suddenly we heard voices and thanks to the excavator, […] we could hear three people at once
told AFP one of the rescuers, Alperen Cetinkayanous. We expect there to be more […]the chances of getting people out of here alive are very high.
In this province, the city of Antakya (ancient Antioch) is in ruins, drowned in a thick cloud of dust due to clearing machines digging through the rubble.
Antakya is over
, repeat residents. As far as the eye can see, there are only totally or partially collapsed buildings. Even those who are still holding are deeply cracked and no one dares to stay there.
The official global casualty count stands at 11,719 dead, with nearly 50,000 injured in Turkey and 5,000 in Syria.
People search for their belongings in a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, Wednesday, February 8, 2023.
Photo : Associated Press / Hussein Malla
Turkey officially deplores at least 9057 dead. This is the worst toll since the 1999 earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.4 and which left 17,000 dead, including a thousand in Istanbul. In 1939, 33,000 people died in an earthquake in the province of Erzincan (East).
At the epicenter of the earthquake, in Kahramanmaras, a devastated city of more than a million people buried in snow, no help, no relief had arrived on Tuesday.
Humanitarian aid is trickling in to Syria after Monday’s major earthquake. The country is isolated after 12 years of civil war and its leaders are subject to international sanctions. On the ground, it is estimated that hundreds of survivors are still trapped under the rubble. Report by Sophie Langlois
Critics mount against Erdogan
Where is the state? Where is he ? […] It’s been two days and we haven’t seen anyone. […] The children froze to death
protested Ali, who still hoped to see his brother and his nephew, trapped in the ruins of their building.
In Adiyaman, another city in southern Turkey, there is still no rescuer or equipment in some disaster areas, noted an AFP journalist. The volunteers are doing their best, but anger is rising in the population.
Of course there are loopholes, it is impossible to be prepared for such a disaster.
pleaded on Wednesday President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who went to the province of Hatay, on the Syrian border.
A few dishonest and dishonorable people have published false statements such as: “We did not see any soldiers or police”
he denounced.
Turkish social media is flooded with messages from people complaining about a lack of rescue efforts and searches for victims in their areas, especially in the Hatay region.
Turkish police have arrested a dozen people since Monday’s earthquake over social media posts criticizing the government’s handling of the disaster.
Twitter was inaccessible on Wednesday and internet governance watchdog netblocks.org said access to the social network was restricted through several internet providers in Turkey
.
International aid began arriving on Tuesday, with dozens of countries offering their services to Ankara including those from the European Union and the Gulf, the United States, China and even Ukraine which, despite the Russian invasion , sent 87 rescuers.
In Syria, 2,662 bodies have so far been extracted from the rubble, according to authorities as well as rescue workers in rebel areas.
Twenty-three million people are potentially exposed, including about five million vulnerable people
warned the World Health Organization (WHO).
In areas where help is slow to arrive, survivors feel quite alone. In Jandairis, in a rebel zone in Syria, even the buildings that did not collapse were badly damaged
explains Hassan, one of its inhabitants who wishes to remain anonymous.
There are approximately 400-500 people trapped under each collapsed building, with only 10 people trying to get them out. And there are no machines
he adds.
In the village of Besnaya, on the border with Turkey, Malik Ibrahim tirelessly clears the rubble, looking for 30 members of his family, all buried under the ruins. Ten dead bodies have already been removed.
There are 20 people left under the rubble. I have no words, it’s a disaster. Our memories are buried with them. We are a disaster people in every sense of the word
says this 40-year-old man who says he was forced to leave his home a few years ago because of the war to take refuge in Idlib.
Under these circumstances, Turkey and Syria can count
on the European Union, assured the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who announced that a donors’ conference would take place in March in Brussels.
Put politics aside and let us do our humanitarian work
pleaded in an interview with AFP the UN coordinator in Syria, El-Mostafa Benlamlih. We cannot afford to wait and negotiate. If we wait to negotiate, it will already be too late
he added.
In the rebel areas, the White Helmets (civil protection volunteers) implored the international community to send aid. People are dying every second under the rubble
their spokesman, Mohammad al-Shebli, told AFP.
In Aleppo, in the government zone, Russian soldiers pulled a man out of the rubble overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced. A total of 42 people have been rescued since the earthquake by Russian soldiers, of whom more than 300 are involved in the rescue, according to the Russian army.