More than a week after a massive earthquake hit Turkey on Tuesday, nine survivors were rescued from the rubble, as relief efforts focused on helping those who now need shelter or coffee in the bitter cold. Struggling without food.
The disaster, which has killed more than 41,000 people in Turkey and neighboring Syria, has devastated cities in both countries, leaving many survivors homeless in near-winter temperatures. .
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has acknowledged difficulties in the initial response to the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in early February. 6 But it has been said that the situation is now under control.
“We are facing one of the biggest natural disasters not only in our country but in the history of humanity,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara.
Among those rescued on Tuesday were two brothers, aged 17 and 21, pulled from an apartment block in Kahramanmaras province, and a Syrian man and a young woman in leopard print headscarves in Antakya after 200 hours in the rubble. Rescued after more than A rescuer said more people could still be alive.
But U.N. officials have said the rescue phase is approaching, focusing on shelter, food and schooling.
“People are suffering a lot. We applied to get a tent, aid or something else, but we haven’t received anything yet,” he said, living with his family in a playground in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep. Hassan Saimwa, a refugee from Wale said.
Saimoh and other Syrians who sought refuge in Gaziantep from the war at home but were displaced by the earthquake used plastic sheets, blankets and cardboard to set up makeshift tents in the playground.
“The needs are enormous, growing by the hour,” said Hans-Henry P. Kluge, the World Health Organization’s director for Europe. “About 26 million people in both countries are in need of humanitarian assistance.”
“There are also growing concerns over emerging health issues linked to cold weather, hygiene and sanitation, and the spread of infectious diseases – particularly with vulnerable people.”
‘Dad, aftershock!’
At a field hospital in the southern Turkish city of Iskenderun, Indian Army Major Bina Tiwari said patients initially arrived with physical injuries but that was changing.
“Now more patients are coming in with post-traumatic stress disorder, after all the trauma they went through during the earthquake,” he said.
Families in both Turkey and Syria said they and their children were dealing with the psychological effects of the earthquake.
“Every time he forgets, he hears a loud noise and then remembers again,” Hassan Moez said of his 9-year-old son in the Syrian city of Aleppo. “When he’s sleeping at night and hears a sound, he wakes up and says to me: ‘Dad, aftershock!’
The first UN aid convoy entered rebel-held northwest Syria from Turkey through the newly opened Bab al-Salam crossing.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed on Monday to allow UN aid to enter through two more border crossings from Turkey, marking a shift towards Damascus that has long held rebel positions. has been opposed to the provision of cross-border aid.
With nearly 9 million people affected by the earthquake in Syria, the United Nations said it launched an appeal for $400 million in funding.
Exodus of survivors
Raed al-Saleh, head of the White Helmets rescue group, said the search for survivors in northwest Syria was nearing its end.
Russia also said it was completing search and rescue operations in Turkey and Syria and preparing for an evacuation.
Erdogan said the death toll was 35,3418. More than 5,814 people have been killed in Syria, according to reports from Syrian state media and a United Nations agency.
Survivors joined the mass exodus from earthquake-hit areas, leaving their homes and unsure if they could ever return.
“It’s very difficult … we will start from zero, without goods, without jobs,” said Hamza Bekri, 22, a Syrian originally from Idlib who has lived in Antakya, southern Turkey, for 12 years. Occupied, but prepared. to follow his family to Sparta in southern Turkey.
More than 2.2 million people have already fled the worst-hit areas, and millions of buildings have been rendered uninhabitable, Erdogan said.