Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll passes 8,700 as Chinese rescue team arrives
- Rescuers in Turkey and Syria battled bitter cold in a race against time to find survivors under buildings
- Dozens of nations have pledged help, and search teams as well as relief supplies have begun to arrive
Natural disasters+ myNEWS
Agencies
+ myNEWS
Published: 11:05am, 8 Feb, 2023
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Emergency workers and medics rescue a woman out of the debris of a collapsed building in Elbistan, Kahramanmaras, in southern Turkey. Photo: AP
The death toll of a devastating earthquake in southern Turkey and Syria passed 8,700, as rescuers worked against time in harsh winter conditions to dig survivors out of the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Official data on Wednesday showed that 6,234 people had died in Turkey and 2,470 in Syria, with many thousands more wounded.
As the scale of the disaster became ever more apparent, the death toll looked likely to rise considerably. One UN official said thousands of children may have died.
Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, followed hours later by a second one almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and residential blocks, injured tens of thousands, and left countless people homeless in Turkey and northern Syria.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces as search-and-rescue teams from around the world descended on the region.
An earthquake rescue team dispatched by China’s government arrived in Turkey’s Adana Airport early on Wednesday, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
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The team, comprised of 82 members, brought 20 tonnes of medical and other rescue supplies and equipment, as well as four search-and-rescue dogs, according to CCTV.The team will cooperate with the local government, the embassy in Turkey, the United Nations and other agencies on missions, including setting up a temporary command, carrying out personnel search and rescue and providing medical aid, CCTV said.
Two US Agency for International Development teams with 80 people each and 12 dogs are set to arrive in Turkey. The European Union has sent 27 search and rescue teams from 19 countries, 11 of which have since arrived.
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Rescue workers struggled to reach some of the worst-hit areas, held back by destroyed roads, poor weather and a lack of resources and heavy equipment. Some areas were without fuel and electricity.
With little immediate help at hand, residents picked through rubble sometimes without even basic tools in a desperate hunt for survivors.
Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria, already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of civil war.
The devastation in Hatay province, southern Turkey. Photo: AP
Erdogan imposed a state of emergency for three months that will permit the government to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms.
The government will open up hotels in the tourism hub of Antalya to temporarily house people impacted by the quakes, said Erdogan, who faces a national election in three months’ time.
Turkish authorities say some 13.5 million people were affected in an area spanning roughly 450km (280 miles) from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east, and 300km from Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south.
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Syrian authorities have reported deaths as far south as Hama, some 250 km from the epicentre.“It’s now a race against time,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. “Every minute, every hour that passes, the chances of finding survivors alive diminishes.”
Across the region, rescuers toiled night and day as people waited in anguish by mounds of rubble clinging to the hope that friends, relatives and neighbours might be found alive.
In Antakya, capital of Hatay province bordering Syria, rescue teams were thin on the ground and residents picked through debris themselves. People pleaded for helmets, hammers, iron rods and rope.
One woman, aged 54 and named Gulumser, was pulled alive from an eight-storey building 32 hours after the quake.
Another woman then shouted at the rescue workers: “My father was just behind that room she was in. Please save him”.
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The workers explained they could not reach the room from the front and needed an excavator to remove the wall first.More than 12,000 Turkish search-and-rescue personnel are working in the affected areas, along with 9,000 troops. More than 70 countries offered rescue teams and other aid.
But the sheer scale of the disaster is daunting.
Members of the Chinese rescue team preparing to leave for Turkey. Photo: Xinhua
“The area is enormous. I haven’t seen anything like this before,” said Johannes Gust, from Germany’s fire and rescue service, as he loaded equipment onto a truck at Adana airport.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said 5,775 buildings had been destroyed in the quake.
Unicef spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva that the earthquake “may have killed thousands of children”.
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Syrian refugees in northwest Syria and in Turkey were among the most vulnerable people affected, Elder said.The affected area in Syria is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, where millions rely on humanitarian aid.
The Syrian Red Crescent appealed to Western countries to lift sanctions and provide aid as President Bashar al-Assad’s government remains a pariah in the West, complicating international relief efforts.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would not work with the Damascus government.
“These funds, of course, go to the Syrian people - not to the regime. That won’t change,” he said.
Aid agencies have also asked the Syrian government to allow border crossings to be reopened to bring help to rebel-held areas.
The Turkey-Syria border is one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.
Monday’s earthquake was the largest Turkey has seen since 1939, when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province.
In 1999, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake killed more than 17,000.
