Hulya Bayrak is rescued from rubble of collapsed constructing 116 hours after earthquakes, on February 10, 2023 in Turkey’s Hatay.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Nine survivors were rescued from the rubble in Turkey on Tuesday, greater than per week after an enormous earthquake struck, as the main focus of the help effort shifted to helping people now struggling without shelter or enough food within the bitter cold.
The disaster, with a combined death toll in Turkey and neighboring Syria exceeding 41,000, has ravaged cities in each countries, leaving many survivors homeless in near-freezing winter temperatures.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has acknowledged problems within the initial response to the 7.8 magnitude quake that struck early on Feb. 6 but has said the situation is now under control.
“We face certainly one of the best natural disasters not only in our country but in addition within the history of humanity,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara.
Those rescued on Tuesday included two brothers, aged 17 and 21, pulled from an apartment block in Kahramanmaras province, and a Syrian man and young woman in a leopard-print headscarf in Antakya rescued after over 200 hours within the rubble. There could possibly be further people alive still to search out, said one rescuer.
But U.N. authorities have said the rescue phase is coming to a detailed, with the main focus turning to shelter, food and education.
“Individuals are suffering lots. We applied to receive a tent, aid, or something, but thus far we didn’t receive anything,” said Hassan Saimoua, a refugee staying together with his family in a playground in Turkey’s southeastern city of Gaziantep.
Saimoua and other Syrians who had found refuge in Gaziantep from the war at home but were made homeless by the quake used plastic sheets, blankets and cardboard to erect makeshift tents within the playground.
“The needs are huge, increasing by the hour,” said Hans Henri P. Kluge, the World Health Organization’s director for Europe. “Some 26 million people across each countries need humanitarian assistance.”
“There are also growing concerns over emerging health issues linked to the cold weather, hygiene and sanitation, and the spread of infectious diseases – with vulnerable people especially in danger.”
‘DAD, AFTERSHOCK!’
At a Turkish field hospital within the southern city of Iskenderun, Indian Army Major Beena Tiwari said patients had initially arrived with physical injuries but that was changing.
“Now more of the patients are coming with post-traumatic stress disorder, following all of the shock that they’ve undergone in the course of the earthquake,” she said.
Families in each Turkey and Syria said they and their children were coping with the psychological aftermath of the quake.
“At any time when he forgets, he hears a loud sound after which remembers again,” Hassan Moaz said of his 9-year-old in Aleppo, Syria. “When he’s sleeping at night and hears a sound, he wakes up and tells me: ‘Dad, aftershock!'”
A primary convoy of U.N. aid entered rebel-held northwest Syria from Turkey via the newly-opened Bab al-Salam crossing.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed on Monday to permit U.N. aid to enter from Turkey via two more border crossings, marking a shift for Damascus which has long opposed cross-border aid deliveries to the rebel enclave.
Nearly 9 million people in Syria were affected by the earthquake, the United Nations said, because it launched a $400 million funding appeal.
SURVIVORS’ EXODUS
The seek for survivors was about to finish within the north west of Syria, said the top of the White Helmets predominant rescue group, Raed al Saleh.
Russia also said it was wrapping up its search and rescue work in Turkey and Syria and preparing to withdraw.
Members of Turkey-backed Syrian National Army rest within the aftermath of an earthquake, in rebel-held town of Jandaris, Syria February 11, 2023.
Khalil Ashawi | Reuters
The Turkish toll was 35,3418 killed, Erdogan said. Greater than 5,814 have died in Syria, in keeping with a Reuters tally of reports from Syrian state media and a U.N. agency.
Survivors joined a mass exodus from earthquake-hit zones, leaving their homes and unsure in the event that they can ever come back.
“It’s extremely hard … We’ll start from zero, without belongings, with out a job,” said 22-year-old Hamza Bekry, a Syrian originally from Idlib who has lived in Antakya, in southern Turkey, for 12 years but prepared to follow his family to Isparta in southern Turkey.
Greater than 2.2 million people have left the worst-hit areas already, Erdogan said, and a whole bunch of hundreds of buildings have turn into uninhabitable.
