Death toll from earthquake in Turkey and Syria rises to more than 5,000

Amid the devastation, rescue teams in Turkey and northern Syria fought against time and cold on Tuesday to search the rubble for survivors of Monday’s violent earthquake, whose balance has already exceeded 5,000 deaths.

International aid should begin to arrive on Tuesday in the areas affected by the earthquake and its aftershocks. The first tremor, early Monday morning, reached magnitude 7.8 and was felt as far as Lebanon, Cyprus and northern Iraq.

In Turkey, the death toll rose to 3,419 people killed and 20,534 injured, Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Tuesday.

In Syria, at least 1,602 people have died and 3,640 have been injured, according to estimates by the Damascus authorities and rescue teams in rebel areas.

Based on the maps of the affected area, a person in charge of the World Health Organization (WHO), Adelheid Marschang, indicated that “23 million people are exposed” to the consequences of the earthquake, “including five million vulnerable people.”

Sometimes with bare hands, rescuers continued the dramatic search for survivors into the night, braving cold, rain or snow and the risk of further landslides.

In Hatay, in southern Turkey, a 7-year-old girl was rescued alive after being trapped under a mountain of rubble.

“Where is my mother?” said the little girl, in her dust-stained pink pajamas, in the arms of a lifeguard.

Bad weather conditions in the Anatolian region complicate rescue efforts and darken the prospects for survivors, who warm themselves in tents or on makeshift bonfires.

international first aid

International aid to Turkey should start arriving on Tuesday with the first rescue teams from places like France or Qatar.

US President Joe Biden promised his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan “all the necessary help, whatever it may be.”

The French contingent intends to reach Kahramanmaras, at the epicenter of the earthquake, a region that is difficult to access and buried under snow.

Two US detachments with 79 first responders each were preparing to move to the scene on Monday, the White House said.

China announced on Tuesday the shipment of aid of 5.9 million dollars, which will include specialized teams for relief in urban environments, medical equipment and emergency supplies, according to a Beijing state media.

According to Erdogan, 45 countries offered help.

Instead, the call launched by the Syrian government received for now a response from Moscow, its ally, which promised relief teams “in the next few hours”, in addition to 300 Russian soldiers who are already in place to help with the rescue. .

The UN also reacted, but insisted that the aid must reach the entire Syrian population, including the part that is not under Damascus control.

Taking advantage of the chaos caused by the shocks, some twenty combatants presumably from the group Islamic State (IS) escaped from a military prison in Rajo, controlled by pro-Turkish rebels.

The balances on both sides of the border do not stop increasing and, taking into account the magnitude of the destruction, they may follow the same trend.

In Turkey alone, the authorities counted almost 5,000 collapsed buildings.

In addition, the radical drop in temperatures carries an additional risk of hypothermia for the injured and those trapped in the rubble.

sleeping rough

The WHO said it feared the worst and on Monday, when the death toll stood at around 2,600 people, it predicted a toll “eight times higher.”

During Monday, up to 185 aftershocks were registered, in addition to the two main shocks: one of magnitude 7.8 in the middle of the night (04:17 local time) and the other of magnitude 7.5 at noon. Aftershocks continued into the early hours of Tuesday. The strongest, of magnitude 5.5, occurred at 6:13 local time (3:13 GMT) 9 km southeast of Gölbasi (south).

The Turkish authorities set up gyms, schools and mosques to house the survivors. But for fear of new earthquakes, many inhabitants preferred to spend the night in the open.

“Everyone is afraid,” said Mustafa Koyuncu, a 55-year-old man who spent the night with his wife and five children in the family car in Sanliurfa (southeastern Turkey).

It is the largest earthquake in Turkey since the one that occurred on August 17, 1999, which killed 17,000 people, a thousand of them in Istanbul.

The Turkish president decreed a seven-day national mourning and the closure of schools for a week.