KAHRAMANMARAS/ANTAKYA, Turkey – The official death toll of a devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria jumped to greater than 8,700 people on Wednesday as overwhelmed rescuers warned that the number would grow significantly with families still trapped under the rubble.
In Turkey, many individuals spent a second night of freezing temperatures sleeping of their cars or within the streets under blankets, fearful to return into buildings shaken by Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake – the country’s deadliest since 1999.
“Where are the tents, where are food trucks?” said Melek, 64, within the southern city of Antakya, adding that she had not seen any rescue teams.
“We haven’t seen any food distribution here unlike previous disasters in our country. We survived the earthquake, but we are going to die here on account of hunger or cold here.”
With the dimensions of the disaster becoming ever more apparent, the death toll – now 6,234 in Turkey – looks prone to carry on rising.
In neighboring Syria, already devastated by 11 years of war, the death toll climbed to greater than 2,500 overnight, based on the Syrian government and a rescue service operating within the rebel-held northwest.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. But residents in several damaged Turkish cities have voiced anger and despair at what they said was a slow and inadequate response by the authorities.
The initial quake struck just after 4 a.m. on Monday, the dead of night within the dead of winter, giving the sleeping population little likelihood to react.
Erdogan, facing a good election in May, is predicted to go to a few of the affected areas on Wednesday.
Turkish authorities say some 13.5 million people were affected in an area spanning roughly 280 miles from Adana within the west to Diyarbakir within the east – broader than that between Boston and Philadelphia, or Amsterdam and Paris.
‘UNDER THE RUBBLE’
The quake, followed hours later by a second one almost as powerful, toppled 1000’s of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, injured tens of 1000’s, and left countless people homeless in Turkey and northern Syria.
Rescue employees have struggled to achieve some of the worst-hit areas, held back by destroyed roads, poor weather and an absence of resources and heavy equipment. Some areas are without fuel and electricity.
Aid officials voiced particular concern concerning the situation in Syria, where humanitarian needs were already greater than at any point for the reason that eruption of a conflict that has partitioned the nation and is complicating relief efforts.
The top of the World Health Organization has said the rescue efforts face a race against time, with the possibilities of finding survivors alive slipping away with every minute and hour.
In Syria, a rescue service operating within the insurgent-held northwest said the variety of dead had climbed to greater than 1,280 and greater than 2,600 were injured.
“The number is predicted to rise significantly on account of the presence of a whole lot of families under the rubble, greater than 50 hours after the earthquake,” the rescue service said on Twitter.
Overnight, the Syrian health minister said the variety of dead in government-held areas rose to 1,250, the state-run al-Ikhbariya news outlet reported on its Telegram feed. The variety of wounded was 2,054, he said.
Turkey’s deadliest earthquake in a generation has handed Erdogan an enormous rescue and reconstruction challenge, which can overshadow the run-up to the May elections already set to be the hardest of his twenty years in power.
The vote, too-close-to-call based on polls before the quake, will determine how Turkey is governed, where its economy is headed and what role the regional power and NATO member may play to ease conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East.
