Istanbul More than 11,000 people lost their lives in the earthquake disaster in Turkey and Syria. While the horror reports of new casualties continue, more and more helpers are rushing to the disaster area. They continue to search for people under the rubble. A fight against time – and against freezing temperatures.
The political situation on the ground also makes it difficult to provide help – for example at the only open border crossing between Turkey and Syria, Bab al-Hawa. The delivery of humanitarian aid is being delayed there because of road damage, UN sources told the German Press Agency. Bab al-Hawa is the last of what were once four border crossings through which aid can also reach parts of Syria that are not controlled by the government.
Aid supplies that come into the country via the capital Damascus are distributed by the government of President Bashar al-Assad. There have been multiple reports that the government is enriching itself, for example by selling it to its own people – or that areas that the government considers hostile are being ignored in the distribution.
In Turkey, more and more support is coming from abroad. Around 50 volunteers from the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) met in Gaziantep in the south-east of the country on Wednesday.
According to information from Bundeswehr circles, the German Air Force is preparing to deliver relief supplies to the earthquake region. On Thursday, three transport machines of the type A400M are to start from the Wunstorf base in Lower Saxony with auxiliary material in the direction of Turkey. The relief supplies would come from the Technical Relief Agency THW and would be brought to Wunstorf by convoy from southern Germany.
Scholz warns to keep the border to Syria open
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Germany is delivering aid to Turkey and is in close contact with the United Nations to bring humanitarian aid to the Syrian earthquake area. “Because the need is huge there too.” The SPD politician emphasized: “Now it is once again being shown how vital this cross-border access is, which we have been campaigning for for years.
The Turkish Ambassador to Germany, Ahmet Basar Sen, has asked for further help from Germany. “Unfortunately that’s not enough,” he said on Wednesday in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”. More rescue workers are needed to free people from the rubble. He asked to send more teams from Germany to Turkey.
Destroyed roads and low temperatures made rescue work in the crisis area more difficult. “This is a catastrophe for a century, maybe a catastrophe for a millennium,” emphasized the ambassador.
The number of victims rises to over 8700
The UN Emergency Relief Office OCHA announced a $25 million emergency fund for earthquake victims in the region. “The humanitarian community will support you every step of the way out of this crisis,” said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also promised financial aid to the victims of the devastating earthquake. Affected families each received 10,000 Turkish lira (around 500 euros) in emergency aid, Erdogan promised on Wednesday in Kahramanmaras.
Despite the far-reaching political isolation of the Syrian government, the civil war country is also receiving international aid. Oman opened an air bridge to send aid, the state news agency ONA reported on Wednesday. Unlike in Turkey, however, the Gulf state does not want to send any rescue teams into the country. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) had pledged $50 million (€46.5 million) in aid to Syria and Turkey. The UAE also wants to set up a field hospital in Syria and send a rescue team, the Syrian Foreign Ministry reported.
Erdogan admits mistakes
In Turkey, the catastrophe is increasingly becoming a domestic political issue: Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the largest opposition party CHP, accused President Erdogan of failing to manage the crisis. The president failed to prepare the country for such an earthquake during his 20-year reign.
People are looking for survivors.
(Photo: dpa)
Erdogan has acknowledged problems with the relief efforts. There were some difficulties with the initial crisis response, Erdogan said during a visit to the disaster area in Kahramanmaras province in the south of the country. There have been problems with the roads and airports, but everything is getting better every day. Now the processes are back to normal, says Erdogan in the face of complaints from the population about a lack of aid resources and too slow a reaction from the authorities.
Turkey is particularly prone to earthquakes because of its geographic location. In many places, however, the poor building fabric is also discussed as a reason for the many collapsed houses. Affected people also complain about the lack of or only sluggish help when rescuing those who have been buried.
According to Vice President Oktay, around 16,150 rescue and search teams are deployed – they have been deployed to all affected provinces and districts. A total of around 60,000 helpers are on site. The government politician said that international and local teams would be brought mainly to the provinces of Adiyaman, Hatay and Kahramanmaras on Wednesday night.
With a magnitude of 7.7 to 7.8, the quake shook the area on the border between Turkey and Syria early Monday morning. Another earthquake of magnitude 7.5 followed in the same region on Monday afternoon. Thousands of buildings collapsed.
More than 49,000 people in Turkey were injured and 6,000 buildings destroyed, Erdogan said when he visited the crisis region. 2,662 deaths were recently reported from Syria.
In Aalen, volunteers sort relief supplies for the people of Turkey.
(Photo: dpa)
The rescue work is a race against time: the critical survival limit for buried people is usually 72 hours. Temperatures around freezing point made things even harder for the survivors, and many of them no longer had a roof over their heads.
More big earthquakes likely in the near future
Rescuers in Syria suspect hundreds of families are still buried under the rubble. One of the hardest-hit areas in the country is the rebel-held region of Idlib.
Many people were also killed in the tremors in Syria.
(Photo: AP)
A civil war broke out in Syria after anti-government protests in 2011, in which many foreign states intervened and in which more than 350,000 people were killed over a decade. The Assad government now controls around two-thirds of the fragmented country again. The earthquake catastrophe hit areas under different control in the north, which makes the work of aid workers even more difficult.
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 Geo Research Center (GFZ) Potsdam of the German Press Agency. More tremors could follow, particularly to the northeast further inland.
More: How the earthquake could lift Syria out of isolation