Turkey-Syria earthquake- latest: Desperation grips Syria as food supplies start to run out
Death toll passes 21,000 as hundreds still trapped under mountains of rubble
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Reeling from the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Syrians are now facing starvation as food stocks are beginning to run out in the northwest of the country.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday it was running out of stocks and called to open more border crossings from Turkey after both countries were ravaged by the natural disaster.
“Northwest Syria, where 90 per cent of the population depends on humanitarian assistance, is a big concern. We have reached the people there, but we need to replenish our stocks,” Corinne Fleischer, WFP Regional Director in the Middle East, Northern Africa and Eastern Europe, told reporters.
“We are running out of stocks and we need access to bring new stocks in. The border crossing is open now, but we need to get new border crossings open.”
The Independent is asking readers to donate to its appeal, with all funds raised going to the Disasters Emergency Committee, which brings together leading UK aid charities to help with the search and rescue effort and provide vital medicines, clean water and temporary accommodation for survivors.
Erdogan says earthquake response should have been faster
The response of search and rescue teams to the massive earthquakes in the country’s south was not as fast as the government wanted, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.
“Although we have the largest search and rescue team in the world right now, it is a reality that search efforts are not as fast as we wanted them to be,” Erdogan said, adding that the death toll in the country had climbed to 18,991.
Previously Erdogan has accepted that the first response was slow immediately after the quake due to bad weather, damaged roads and the vast area impacting 10 provinces in the country.
Some residents in the worst hit areas complained that no emergency workers were on the ground in the crucial first hours after the quake, a charge opposition politicians have picked up on, blaming Erdogan’s government.
Erdogan said search and rescue continued with teams joining efforts from all over the world after 94 countries offered help.
Some 24.4 million people in Syria and Turkey have been affected, according to Turkish officials and the United Nations, in an area spanning 450 km (280 miles) from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east. In Syria, people were killed as far south as Hama, 250 km from the epicentre.
Speaking in Adiyaman province, which was also hit by the earthquakes, Erdogan said some people were robbing markets and attacking businesses, adding that a state of emergency declared in the area will allow the state to impose necessary penalties.
Evacuations from the area continued. Due to the large number of damaged buildings, tent cities have been set up by authorities to house hundreds of thousands left without home in temperatures below 0 Celsius.
After visiting displaced people sheltered in tents, Erdogan said if people preferred to move from the impacted cities the government would pay their rents for a year.
“We will rebuild these (damaged) buildings within one year and will hand them back to citizens...While we do that we will pay the rent of citizens who do not want to stay in tents,” Erdogan said.
Syrian government approves humanitarian aid delivery across frontlines-state media
The Syrian government has approved humanitarian aid delivery across the frontlines of the country’s 12-year civil war, state media said on Friday.
This could speed up the arrival of help for millions of people affected by Monday’s deadly quake.
Aid distribution will take place in cooperation with the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, state media said, to “guarantee the arrival of this aid to those who need it”.
The U.N. has pushed for aid to flow more freely into Syria, especially into the country’s northwest - where it estimated more than 4 million people already required aid before the quake - via frozen frontlines and through crossings with Turkey.
More than 3,200 people have died in Syria from the earthquake, with many more injured and hundreds of thousands displaced. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that the death toll in Turkey had risen to 19,388.
Dozens of planeloads of aid have arrived in areas held by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government since Monday but little has reached the northwest, leading many residents to say they feel left alone.
State media reported that the government had also declared areas worst affected by the quake, Lattakia, Hama, Aleppo and Idlib, disaster zones and would set up a rehabilitation fund.
Turkey earthquake: Teenager trapped under rubble for 94 hours drinks own urine to survive
A teenager trapped following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey says he was forced to drink his own urine during the 94 hours he spent under the rubble.
“I was able to survive that way,” Adnan Muhammed Korkut explained, after being pulled from the basement where had been trapped since two major earthquakes and more than 100 aftershocks struck on Monday.
Before dawn in Gaziantep, near the epicentre of the quake, rescuers pulled Adnan from the remains of his home – a crush of twisted metal, buckled walls, smashed tiles, and mangled beams.
Emily Atkinson has more:
Turkey earthquake: Teenager trapped for 94 hours drinks own urine to survive
‘Thank God you arrived,’ he says following his rescue
2 powerful quakes link Turkey, Japan and Syria in suffering
Mountains of rubble and twisted metal. Death on an unimaginable scale. Grief. Rage. Relief at having survived.
What’s left behind after a natural disaster so powerful that it rends the foundations of a society? What lingers over a decade later, even as the rest of the world moves on?
Similarities between the calamity unfolding this week in Turkey and Syria and the triple disaster that hit northern Japan in 2011 may offer a glimpse of what the region could face in the years ahead. They’re linked by the sheer enormity of the collective psychological trauma, of the loss of life and of the material destruction.
The combined death toll of Monday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake rose past 20,000 deaths as regional governments announced the discovery of new bodies Thursday. That has already eclipsed the more than 18,400 who died in the disaster in Japan.
2 powerful quakes link Turkey, Japan and Syria in suffering
What’s left behind after a natural disaster so powerful that it rends the foundations of a society
Satellite images reveal fault line through city near epicentre of Turkey’s deadly earthquake
New satellite images show a significant fault line stretching through a city near the epicentre of Turkey’s deadly earthquake.
A vast fault line rupture in Nurdagi is seen cutting across a motorway, farmland, and residential areas in photos shared today by Maxar Technologies.
Images from before and after the two major earthquakes on Monday capture the extent of the devastation left behind in their wake.
See here:
Satellite images show fault line near epicentre of Turkey earthquake
Images capture extent of devastation and destruction left behind by deadly earthquake
Turkey earthquake: 10-day-old baby saved after spending almost half its life under rubble
A newborn baby and his mother have been rescued from the rubble in Turkey, around 90 hours after the first of the deadly earthquakes to strike the country and Syria.
The 10-day-old boy, named Yagiz, was retrieved from a wrecked building in the southern Hatay province, which has suffered terrible damage from the tremors.
The child being carefully taken out overnight, wrapped in a thermal blanket being carried to an ambulance. His mother was brought out on a stretcher. Both were taken to hospital for checks and treatment.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu tweeted that the rescue happened in the town of Samandag.
10-day-old baby saved after spending almost half its life under earthquake rubble
Both baby and mother taken away in an ambulance for health checks at a hospital
Moment teenager who was trapped for 94 hours pulled from earthquake rubble
Search and rescue workers cried out in joy after pulling a 17-year-old, who had been trapped for 94 hours, out from under the rubble in Turkish city of Gaziantep on Friday.
Adnan Muhammed Korkut was freed after becoming stuck under debris following Monday’s devastating 7.8 magnitude quake and powerful aftershocks.
One rescue worker, Yasemin, said she had spent the past four days trying to help the teenager and had not slept.
Speaking to reporters, Korkut said he had survived over the past four days by “drinking his own urine” as he waited for help.
Moment teenager who was trapped for 94 hours pulled from earthquake rubble
Search and rescue workers cried out in joy after pulling a 17-year-old, who had been trapped for 94 hours, out from under the rubble in Turkish city of Gaziantep on Friday. Adnan Muhammed Korkut was freed after becoming stuck under debris following Monday’s devastating 7.8 magnitude quake and powerful aftershocks. One rescue worker, Yasemin, said she had spent the past four days trying to help the teenager and had not slept. Speaking to reporters, Korkut said he had survived over the past four days by “drinking his own urine” as he waited for help. Donate to our Turkey and Syria earthquake appeal here.
Thousands want to adopt Syria’s ‘miracle baby’ born under earthquake rubble
A baby born under the rubble and rescued after devastating earthquakes in Syria has been christened with an Arabic name that means “sign from God” and has received several offers of adoption.
The baby girl’s mother had delivered the new born under the rubble of a collapsed building, but had died shortly after.
The newborn was still connected to her mother’s umbilical cord when she was discovered by rescuers in the small town of Jinderis, next to the Turkish border, Ramadan Sleiman.
The baby is one of the only surviving members of her family.
Doctors said they named the girl “Aya” or Arabic for “sign from God”.
Thousands want to adopt Syria’s ‘miracle baby’ born under earthquake rubble
New born’s great uncle will take her in once she is released from hospital
In pictures: Volunteers prepare graves for the casualties in Syria following devastating earthquake
Photos show volunteers preparing graves for the casualties, in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake, in rebel-held town of Jandaris, Syria.
Humanitarian aid charity providing hot meals to families who have lost their homes in Turkey
Humanitarian aid charity Khalsa Aid is distributing blankets and providing hot meals to families who have lost their homes and are now living in tents as a result of the Turkey and Syria earthquake.
While the government is providing help to those in desperate need, they are struggling to reach many people in both countries.
Therefore, Khalsa Aid International has dispatched a three-person team from its Iraq branch - as well as its CEO - to carry out assessments and deliver emergency support on the ground in Turkey
On its website, the charity said: “The team, travelled overnight by road from Iraq, arriving in Turkey on Tuesday afternoon. The travel infrastructure and thousands of buildings have been completely destroyed leaving residents trapped in cities this added to the difficulties in traveling for our rescue team.
“Our team travelled with a truckload of 3,500 blankets to distribute as those who have lost their homes are now battling freezing conditions as the temperature is expected to remain very cold in the coming days, with overnight temperatures dropping to below -5 degrees celsius.”
They added that over the next few days focus remains on providing the most urgent aid.
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