Rescuers in race against time as Turkey-Syria quake death toll passes
5,000
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[February 07, 2023]
By Ece Toksabay and Huseyin Hayatsever
ANTAKYA, Turkey (Reuters) - Rescuers struggled to dig people out of the
rubble of collapsed buildings on Tuesday in a "race against time" as the
death toll from an earthquake across a wide area of Turkey and Syria
passed 5,000.
The magnitude 7.8 quake - the deadliest in Turkey since 1999
- hit early on Monday and was followed by a second hours later.
Thousands of buildings were toppled, hospitals and schools wrecked and
tens of thousands of people were injured or left homeless in several
Turkish and Syrian cities.
A U.N. official said thousands of children may be among the dead.
Harsh winter weather hampered search efforts and the delivery of aid and
made the plight of the homeless even more miserable. Some areas were
without fuel and electricity.
Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria,
already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of
civil war.
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In Turkey, the death toll had climbed to 3,419 people by Tuesday
morning, Vice President Fuat Oktay said. In Syria, the death toll stood
at just over 1,600, according to the government and a rescue service in
the insurgent-held northwest.
Turkish authorities say some 13.5 million people were affected in an
area spanning roughly 450 km from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the
east, and 300 km from Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south. Syrian
authorities have reported deaths as far south as Hama, some 100 km from
the epicentre.
"It's now a race against time," World Health Organization Director
General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. "Every minute, every
hour that passes, the chances of finding survivors alive diminishes."
Across the region, rescuers toiled through the night and into the
morning searching for survivors as people waited in anguish by mounds of
rubble, clinging to the hope that friends and relatives might be found
alive.
In the Turkish city of Antakya, capital of Hatay province near the
Syrian border, a woman's voice was heard calling for help under a pile
of rubble.
Reuters journalists saw the body of a small child lying lifeless nearby.
Weeping in the rain, a resident who gave his name as Deniz wrung his
hands in despair.
"They're making noises but nobody is coming," he said. "We're
devastated, we're devastated. My God... They're calling out. They're
saying, 'Save us' but we can't save them. How are we going to save them?
There has been nobody since the morning."
Families slept in cars lined up in the streets.
Ayla, standing by a pile of rubble where an eight-storey building once
stood, said she had driven to Hatay from Gaziantep on Monday in search
of her mother. Five or six rescuers from the Istanbul fire department
were working in the ruins.
"There have been no survivors yet. A street dog came and barked at a
certain point for long, I feared it was for my mother. But it was
someone else," she said.
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Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said 5,775
buildings had been destroyed in the quake, which was followed by 285
aftershocks, and that 20,426 people had been injured.
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![](../images/020723PIX/news_g77.jpg)
People stand near rubble and damages
following an earthquake in Gaziantep, Turkey, February 7, 2023.
REUTERS/Suhaib Salem
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In Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters:
"The earthquakes ... may have killed thousands of children."
'TERRIFYING SCENE'
The WHO was especially concerned about areas of Turkey and Syria
where no information had emerged since the quake struck, Tedros
said.
In the Syrian city of Hama, Abdallah al Dahan said funerals for
several families were taking place on Tuesday.
"It's a terrifying scene in every sense," said Dahan, contacted by
phone. "In my whole life I haven’t seen anything like this, despite
everything that has happened to us."
Mosques had opened their doors to families whose homes were damaged.
The death toll in Syrian government-held areas rose to 812, the
state news agency SANA reported. In the rebel-held northwest, the
toll was more than 790, according to the Syrian civil defence, a
rescue service known as the White Helmets and famous for digging
people from the rubble of government air strikes.
"There are lot of efforts by our teams, but they are unable to
respond to the catastrophe and the large number of collapsed
buildings," group head Raed al-Saleh said.
Time was running out to save hundreds of families trapped under the
rubble of buildings and urgent help was needed from international
groups, he said.
A U.N. humanitarian official in Syria said fuel shortages and the
harsh weather were creating obstacles.
"The infrastructure is damaged, the roads that we used to use for
humanitarian work are damaged, we have to be creative in how to get
to the people," U.N. resident coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih told
Reuters from Damascus.
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The earthquake was the biggest recorded worldwide by the U.S.
Geological Survey since one in the remote South Atlantic in August
2021.
Poor internet connections and damaged roads between some of the
worst-hit Turkish cities, homes to millions of people, hindered
efforts to assess the impact and plan help.
With tight elections scheduled in just three months, President
Tayyip Erdogan's government faces a multi-billion-dollar
reconstruction challenge just as he was ramping up his re-election
campaign.
The economy, already strained by inflation at 58%, is expected to
grow a bit less than previously expected this year, analysts say.
(Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus, Suleiman al-Khalidi
in Amman, Mehmet Caliskan in Hatay, Umit Ozdal in Malatya, Ezgi
Erkoyun, Daren Butler and Jonathan Spicer in Istanbul and Timour
Azhari and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Writing by Tom Perry and Angus
MacSwan, Editing by Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie)
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