Nine survivors pulled from Turkey's rubble as quake loss of life passes 40,000

Tuesday Feb 14 2023

Death toll 35,418 in Turkey, over 5,800 in Syria
Rescue phase 'coming to an end', says UN in Syria
Syria's Assad agrees to more border crossings for aid.
ANTAKYA, TURKEY: Nine survivors were rescued from rubble in Turkey on Tuesday, more than a week after a powerful earthquake, as the focus of aid shifted to helping people now struggling without shelter or enough food in the bitter cold.

The disaster, whose total death toll in Turkey and neighboring Syria has exceeded 41,000, has ravaged cities in both countries and left many survivors homeless in freezing winter temperatures.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged problems in the initial response to the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck on February 6, but said the situation was now under control.

We are facing quite possibly the best catastrophic event in our country and in the entire existence of mankind," Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara.

Those rescued on Tuesday included two siblings, aged 17 and 21, who were pulled from an attic block in the Kahramanmaras area, and a Syrian man and a young lady wearing a panther headscarf in Antakya rescued after more than 200 hours in the rubble. According to one of the heroes, there could be other living individuals.

In any case, the UN specialists said the rescue phase was approaching, with the center serving as shelter, food and tutoring.

"Individuals endure a lot. We asked for a tent, help or something like that, but we haven't received anything yet," said Hassan Saimoua, a displaced person who stayed with his family in a crawl space in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep. .

Saimoua and various Syrians who sought refuge in Gaziantep after the conflict at home, yet were left stranded by the shock, used plastic sheeting, tarps and cardboard to set up flimsy tents in a crawl space.

"The needs are huge and constantly expanding," said Hans Henri P. Kluge, head of the World Wellbeing Association for Europe. "About 26 million individuals in both countries are in need of philanthropic assistance."

"Similarly, concerns are developing about the emerging health problems associated with cold climates, cleanliness and sterilization, and the spread of irresistible diseases - among weak individuals, especially those at risk."

“Father, delayed response!”
At a Turkish field clinic in the southern city of Iskenderun, Indian Armed Forces Major Beena Tiwari said patients first showed up with real injuries, but that was evolving.

"Nowadays more patients come with a post-threat pressure problem, after all the shock they went through during the seismic shaking," she said.

Families in both Turkey and Syria reported that they and their children were coping with the psychological effects of the shock.

"Whenever he neglects, he hears a booming sound and then remembers it again," Hassan Moaz said of his nine-year-old in Aleppo, Syria. "While he's resting in the evening and he hears a sound, he wakes up and says to me, 'Father, delayed response!'

The first UN aid convoy entered rebel-held northwestern Syria from Turkey through the recently opened Bab al-Salam crossing.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed on Monday to allow UN aid to enter from Turkey using two more border crossings, marking a shift for Damascus, which has long opposed cross-border aid shipments to dissident territory.

Nearly 9 million people in Syria have been affected by the earthquake, the United Nations said as it sent a request for $400 million in aid.

Departure of the survivors
The search for survivors will end in northwest Syria, said Raed al Saleh, head of the White Head primary rescue group of the defenders.

Russia also said it was completing its pursuit and rescue efforts in Turkey and Syria and preparing to withdraw.

Turkey's cost was 35,3418 killed, Erdogan said. More than 5,814 have crossed into Syria, according to reports from Syrian state media and the United Nations.

Survivors joined the mass exodus from the quake-hit areas, abandoning their homes and not sure they could return anytime soon.

"It's exceptionally hard... We start from nothing, with no assets, no task," said 22-year-old Hamza Bekry, a Syrian originally from Idlib who has long lived in Antakya, southern Turkey. ready to follow his family to Isparta in southern Turkey.

Erdogan said more than 2.2 million individuals have left the worst-hit regions and countless structures have become terrifying.

"The individuals are not dead as a direct result of the earthquake, they are dead as a result of insurance that was not taken out before," said Qudsi, who headed to Kahramanmaras from Istanbul and covered his uncle, aunt and their two children while their two little girls were missing the entire time.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, facing a political race scheduled for June that is expected to be the toughest of his twenty years in power, recognized problems in the basic response, however said the circumstance was currently resolved.

The seismic tremors have fueled hatred among some Turks against the large number of Syrian evacuees who have fled the nationwide conflict to Turkey. Syrians said they were accused of looting, removed from camps and insulted.