Quake Toll Keeps Rising

Hope for Survivors Fades in Turkey, Syria

Date: 08 February 2023 - 21:35

News ID: ۱۱۲۲۶۹

GAZIANTEP, Turkey (AP) — With the hope of finding survivors fading, stretched rescue teams in Turkey and Syria searched Wednesday for signs of life in the rubble of thousands of buildings toppled by a catastrophic earthquake. The confirmed death toll from the world’s deadliest quake in more than a decade passed 11,000.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan toured a “tent city” in hard-hit Kahramanmaras where people forced from their homes were living. Amid calls for his government to send more help to the disaster zone, Erdogan conceded initial shortfalls in the response to Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake but vowed no one would “be left in the streets.”
Search teams from more than two dozen countries have joined tens of thousands of local emergency personnel on the ground in Syria and Turkey. But the scale of destruction from the earthquake and its powerful aftershocks was so immense and spread over such a wide area, including places isolated by Syria’s ongoing war, that many people were still awaiting help.
Experts said the survival window for those trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings or otherwise unable to access water, food, protection from the elements or medical attention was closing rapidly. At the same time, they said it was too soon to abandon hope for more rescues.
Rescuers at times used excavators in their searches and picked gingerly through debris at other points to locate survivors or the dead. With thousands of buildings toppled, it was not clear how many people might still be caught in the rubble.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said Wednesday that the recovered bodies of people who died in the earthquake but cannot be identified would be buried within five days even if they remained unnamed.

The agency, known as AFAD, said unidentified victims would be buried following DNA tests, finger printing and after being photographed for future identification.
The move is in line with Islamic funeral rites which require a burial to take place as quickly as possible after a person’s death.
Turkey’s president said the country’s death toll passed 8,500. The Syrian Health Ministry, meanwhile, said the death toll in government-held areas climbed past 1,200, while at least 1,400 people have in the rebel-held northwest.
Syrian officials said the bodies of more than 100 Syrians who died during the earthquake in Turkey were brought back home for burial. Mazen Alloush, an official on the Syrian side of the border, said 20 more bodies were on their way, adding that all of them were Syrian refugees who fled civil war.
Stories of rescues continued to provide hope that some people still trapped might be found alive. A crying newborn still connected by the umbilical cord to her deceased mother was rescued in Syria on Monday. In Turkey’s Kahramanmaras, rescuers pulled a 3-year-old boy, Arif Kaan, from the rubble.
“For now, the name of hope in Kahramanmaras is Arif Kaan,” a Turkish television reporter proclaimed as the dramatic rescue was broadcast to the country.
Polish rescuers told TVN24 that low temperatures were working against them, though two firefighters said the fact that the predawn quake struck as many people were in bed under warm covers could help buy the search teams more time.
Cold weather also exacerbated the misery of residents who lost their homes. Many survivors in Turkey slept in cars, government shelters or outdoors.
Erdogan, on his tour of quake-hit areas, acknowledged that there were problems early on in the response but said it had improved. He said his government would distribute 10,000 Turkish lira ($532) to affected families.
On Wednesday, Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnous visited neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo, where buildings collapsed because of the earthquake.
“Our priority now is to rescue the people who are still under the rubble,” he said.
The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.