A man holds the hand of his 15-year-old daughter, who died in the earthquake.
Antakya, Turkey:
Heartbreaking footage of a newborn being plucked alive from the rubble and a heartbroken father holding his dead daughter’s hand have exposed the human cost of the earthquake in Syria and Turkey that claimed more than 11,200 lives on Wednesday.
Since the 7.8-magnitude earthquake, a makeshift army of rescuers has been working in freezing temperatures for two days and nights to find those still buried among ruins in several towns on either side of the border.
It is feared many are still trapped under the rubble.
Officials and medics said 8,574 people had been killed in Turkey and 2,662 in Syria from Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, bringing the total to 11,236.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that time is running out for the thousands of injured and those who still fear being trapped.
Rescue operations have been underway since Monday.
For Mesut Hancer, a resident of the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter, it is already too late.
He sat on the icy rubble, too sad to talk, refusing to let go of his 15-year-old daughter Irmak’s hand as her body lay lifeless between slabs of concrete and strands of twisted rebar.
‘Children are cold’
Even for survivors, the future looks bleak.
Many have taken refuge from relentless aftershocks, cold rain and snow in mosques, schools and even bus shelters — burning rubble to try to keep warm.
Frustration is growing that aid is so slow to arrive.
“I can’t get my brother back from the ruins. I can’t get my nephew back. Look around here. There is no state official here for God’s sake,” said Ali Sagiroglu in Kahramanmaras.
“We haven’t seen the state here for two days… Kids are freezing from the cold,” he said.
In nearby Gaziantep, shops were closed, there was no heat because gas lines have been cut to prevent explosions, and finding gasoline was difficult.
The cold temperatures have worsened conditions for survivors seeking shelter.
Sixty-one-year-old resident Celal Deniz said police had to intervene when impatient crowds waiting for rescue teams “rioted”.
About 100 others, wrapped in blankets, slept in an airport terminal lounge normally used to welcome Turkish politicians and celebrities.
“We’ve seen the buildings collapse, so we know we’re glad we’re still alive,” said Zahide Sutcu, who went to the airport with her two small children.
“But now our life is so uncertain. How will I take care of these children?”
On the other side of the border in northern Syria, a decade of civil war and Syrian-Russian aerial bombardments had already destroyed hospitals, collapsed the economy and led to electricity, fuel and water shortages.
The number of deaths from the disaster continues to rise.
In the rebel-controlled town of Jindayris, even the joy of saving a newborn baby was tainted with grief.
She was still tied to her mother who died in the disaster.
“We heard a voice while we were digging,” Khalil al-Suwadi, a relative, told AFP.
“We cleaned up the dust and found the baby with the umbilical cord (intact), so we cut it and my cousin took her to the hospital.”
The child faces a difficult future as the only survivor of her immediate family. The rest were buried together in a mass grave on Tuesday.
International response
Dozens of countries, including the United States, China and the Gulf States, have pledged to help, and search teams and relief supplies have begun to arrive by air.
A winter storm has compounded the misery by making many roads – some damaged by the quake – nearly impassable, causing traffic jams for miles in some regions.
The World Health Organization has warned that up to 23 million people could be affected by the massive earthquake and is urging countries to provide urgent aid to the disaster area.
The Syrian Red Crescent appealed to Western countries to lift sanctions and provide aid as President Bashar al-Assad’s government remains a pariah in the West, complicating international relief efforts.
Western sanctions have made international aid more difficult.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would not cooperate with the government of Damascus.
“These funds will of course go to the Syrian people – not the regime. That will not change,” he said.
Aid agencies have also asked the Syrian government to allow the reopening of border crossings to provide aid to rebel-held areas.
The border between Turkey and Syria is one of the most active earthquake zones in the world.
Monday’s earthquake was the biggest Turkey has seen since 1939, when 33,000 people died in the eastern province of Erzincan.
In 1999, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake killed more than 17,000 people.
Experts have long warned that a major earthquake could devastate Istanbul, a megalopolis of 16 million people filled with rickety houses.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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