Status: 07.02.2023 9:28 p.m
The number of victims of the earthquake is still increasing. The search for missing persons becomes more and more dramatic in freezing temperatures. International aid is coming for Turkey – it is more complicated in the civil war country Syria.
The number of victims after the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria is still increasing. Freezing temperatures in the area make searching beneath the rubble a race against time. The Turkish weather service predicted some snow and rain.
Overall, the number of dead is now more than 7,000, the number of injured is said to be more than 30,000. The Pacific Disaster Center, a US organization for disaster relief, assumes that a total of around 23 million people have been affected by the earthquake.
Katarina Willinger, ARD Istanbul currently Adiyaman, with information on the situation on site
daily topics 9:35 p.m., 7.2.2023
In Syria, it hit the weakest
While aid has started in many areas in Turkey, thousands of people in war-torn Syria are still waiting for rescue. Helpers there suspect that hundreds of families are still buried under the rubble.
The tremors in the civil war country mainly hit people who were already living in great need. Many of the internally displaced people who lived in ramshackle shelters before the disaster had to spend the night outside in freezing temperatures, a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR said. One of the hardest hit areas is the Idlib region, which is under the control of the rebels and not the government in Damascus.
Because everything is missing, the search so far has been slow, according to the White Helmets, an aid organization in the rebel areas. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights explained that doctors were also overwhelmed and could not save all of the injured.
Baerbock demands opening of the border crossings
According to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the only open border crossing between Turkey and Syria was damaged in the quake. She called for all border crossings to be opened to enable faster help in Syria. All international actors – including Russia – should “use their influence on the Syrian regime so that the humanitarian aid for the victims can also arrive there,” said Baerbock.
Russia is an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has its own troops in the country. In recent years, the governments of both countries had progressively restricted a UN aid mechanism with several border crossings until only the now damaged crossing remained.
The head of the Syrian Red Crescent, Chaled Habubati, called on the EU to lift its sanctions and to send aid. The Syrian government assured that aid supplies would also be forwarded to areas of the country not controlled by Damascus.
Map of the earthquake area in the Turkish-Syrian border region (status 6.2.23)
State of emergency declared in Turkey
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in ten provinces affected by the quake. City Minister Murat Kurum said: “This earthquake directly affected 13.5 million of our citizens.” Some roads and paths are not accessible, work is being done to make them passable. “The pain is indescribable.”
According to estimates by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, around 150,000 people have become homeless in Turkey alone. In some areas, residents accuse the government of not doing enough.
relief teams on the way
Rescue teams have now set out from all over the world to support the work in the disaster area. According to the commissioner responsible, more than 1,150 rescue workers and 70 dogs have been dispatched via the EU’s Center for Disaster Relief. 145 helpers are on their way from Mexico, and the German THW also sent teams.
Aid pledges also came from Great Britain, Israel, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the USA. Even Ukraine, which was attacked by Russia, announced that it would send 87 rescue workers to Turkey.
Waiting for professional rescue teams after earthquake disaster in Turkey
Katarina Willinger, ARD Istanbul currently, focal point 8:15 p.m., February 7th, 2023
New earthquakes feared
Experts assume that there could be earthquakes of a similar size in nearby regions in the near future. The reason for this is stress redistribution, said Marco Bohnhoff from the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam. Further earthquakes could follow, especially to the north-east of the previous area. His colleague Charlotte Krawczyk explained that there hadn’t been such a large earthquake in the affected area for about 900 years.