Istanbul The rescue of people buried in the earthquake areas in southern Turkey and northern Syria continues under great time pressure. Two days after the natural disaster that killed thousands, the hope of finding survivors under the rubble of collapsed buildings in the sometimes wintry temperatures is fading.
Rescue workers with heavy equipment were also on duty on Wednesday night. More and more support is coming from abroad. A 50-strong team from the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) has arrived in the disaster area
On the second night after the severe earthquake in the Turkish-Syrian border area, relatives and rescue workers continued to search for buried people. The salvage activities in the earthquake areas were still in full swing, as Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay announced late Tuesday evening. “This work will continue until we reach the last citizen under the rubble.”
According to 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 to the provinces of Adiyaman, Hatay and Kahramanmaras on Wednesday night, partly by air. The weather conditions allowed such flights, which made the work easier.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip 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.
The number of victims rises to over 8700
For many people, however, any help came too late. According to the authorities, the death toll rose to more than 11,000 on Wednesday night. More than 39,200 people were injured. According to Oktay, there are more than 8,500 dead and more than 37,000 injured in Turkey alone.
23 million people affected by the earthquake
According to the local Ministry of Health and the rescue organization White Helmets, more than 2,500 people died in Syria. In addition, there are more than 4,650 injured. According to estimates by the Pacific Disaster Center, a US disaster relief organization, around 23 million people have been affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
People are looking for survivors.
(Photo: dpa)
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. Temperatures around freezing point made things even harder for the survivors in the disaster area, and many of them no longer have a roof over their heads. The full extent of the catastrophe is only slowly becoming clear.
According to an initial estimate by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), an estimated 150,000 people in Turkey have become homeless. In southern Turkey’s Kahramanmaras alone, 941 buildings have been completely destroyed, said Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.
German relief teams also took up their work. Helpers from the organization ISAR were involved in rescuing a buried woman, said the organization, which is helping in the hard-hit city of Kirikhan near the Turkish-Syrian border. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) assured Turkish President Erdogan of further support.
50 volunteers from the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) arrived in Gaziantep in south-eastern Turkey on Wednesday for the relief operation. Their task is to locate, rescue and provide first aid to people who have been buried, said the spokesman for the THW state association in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, Michael Walsdorf, on Wednesday in Mainz. After landing in the morning, they would first load vehicles and then drive to their operational area.
THW expects a difficult mission
In view of the extent of the destruction and the risk of aftershocks, the THW expects a difficult and possibly longer operation in the earthquake region of Turkey, as THW President Gerd Friedsam made clear before the team’s departure.
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.
While aid has started on a large scale in Turkey, many of those affected in Syria are waiting for rescue teams. Foreign Minister Baerbock said there is currently only one open border crossing, which was damaged in the earthquake. “That’s why opening the border crossings is so important.”
In Aalen, volunteers sort relief supplies for the people of Turkey.
(Photo: dpa)
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.” No additional hurdles should be set up.
Oman opened an air bridge to send aid, the state news agency ONA reported. Unlike in Turkey, the Gulf state does not want to send any rescue teams into the country. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) had previously pledged $50 million in aid to Syria. Turkey is to receive the same amount. The UAE also wants to set up a field hospital in Syria and send a rescue team, the Syrian Foreign Ministry reported.
In addition to several Arab countries, Iran, Russia and China also pledged support to the Syrian leadership. A plane with relief supplies has also already arrived from India, and another with medicines and medical material is to follow, according to Syria’s state news agency Sana.
The Syrian government has submitted an application for disaster relief to the EU. The request for help includes a long list of common disaster protection goods, said Commissioner Janez Lenarcic, responsible for EU crisis management, in Brussels on Wednesday. According to this, Syria is asking about medicines, food and medical equipment. “I encourage EU states to respond to the request,” said Lenarcic.
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 is the rebel-controlled region of Idlib, where state emergency aid is difficult due to the hostile forces in the civil war. After more than eleven years of war, the government troops of the ruler Bashar al-Assad control around two thirds of Syria again.
Many people were also killed in the tremors in Syria.
(Photo: AP)
According to the UN, 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 dilapidated accommodation before the disaster had to spend the night outside in freezing temperatures, as a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR told the German Press Agency.
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