Rescue workers pulled more people from the rubble a week after an earthquake in Turkey and Syria that killed more than 33,000 people, as the United Nations warned that the death toll would be much higher.
A young boy and a 62-year-old woman were the latest miraculous rescues after nearly seven days trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings since last Monday’s devastating earthquake.
Anadolu state news agency reported on Monday that seven-year-old Mustafa was rescued in southeast Turkey’s Hatay province, while Nafiz Yilmaz was freed in Nurdagi, also in Hatay. Both were stranded for 163 hours before being rescued late on Sunday night.
Turkey’s disaster agency said more than 32,000 people from Turkish organizations were working on the search and rescue efforts, along with 8,294 international rescuers.
A member of a British search team posted a remarkable video on Twitter on Sunday, showing a rescuer crawling through a tunnel carved through rubble to find a Turkish man who has been trapped for five days in Hatay. happened.
Search teams are facing a race against the clock as experts warn that with each passing day the hope of finding people alive in the rubble diminishes.
In the devastated Turkish city of Kahanmaras near the epicenter, rescuers recovered a body from the rubble as diggers dug through mountains of twisted debris.
But in many areas, rescuers said they lacked sensors and advanced search equipment, reducing them to digging carefully through rubble with shovels or only their hands.
“If we had equipment like this, we would have saved hundreds of lives, if not more,” said Alaa Mubarak, head of civil defense in Jableh, northwestern Syria.
Aid shortage in northern Syria
The United Nations has condemned the failure to send much-needed aid to war-torn areas of Syria.
A convoy with supplies to northwestern Syria arrived via Turkey, but UN relief chief Martin Griffiths said more were needed for the millions of people whose homes had been destroyed.
“We have disappointed the people in northwestern Syria so far. They really feel left out. Griffiths said on Twitter, seeking international help which has not yet arrived.
Assessing the damage in southern Turkey on Saturday, when the death toll stood at 28,000, Griffiths said he expected that figure to be “double or more” as the chances of finding survivors dwindled with each passing day. She goes.
Supplies have been slow to arrive in Syria, where years of conflict have ravaged the health system, and parts of the country are under the control of rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad’s government, which defies Western sanctions. is subordinate.
But a 10-truck convoy from the United Nations crossed into northwest Syria through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, carrying shelter kits, plastic wrap, ropes, blankets, mattresses and carpets, according to an AFP correspondent.
Bab al-Hawa is the only point for people to reach Syria’s rebel-held areas after other crossings were closed under pressure from China and Russia, nearly 12 years of civil war.
head of World The health organization met Assad in Damascus on Sunday and said the Syrian leader had expressed readiness to make more border crossings to help bring aid to the rebel-held northwest.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters he was “ready to consider additional cross-border access points for this emergency.”
conflict, covid, cholera, earthquake
“The compounding crisis of conflict, COVID, cholera, economic decline and now the earthquake has taken an intolerable toll,” Tedros said a day after visiting Aleppo.
While Damascus had given the all-clear for cross-line aid convoys to move through government areas, Tedros said the WHO was still waiting for the green light from rebel-held areas before leaving.
Assad hoped for more “efficient cooperation” with the UN agency to address shortages of supplies, equipment and medicines, his president said.
He also thanked the United Arab Emirates for providing “enormous relief and humanitarian aid”, pledging hundreds of millions of dollars.
But security concerns in Turkey postponed some rescue operations, and dozens have been arrested on charges of looting or trying to defraud victims after the quake, according to state media.
An Israeli emergency relief organization said on Sunday it had suspended its earthquake rescue operations in Turkey and returned home because of a “significant” security threat to its staff.
anger rises
After days of grief and anguish, anger is rising in Turkey over the poor quality of buildings as well as the government’s response to the country’s worst disaster in nearly a century.
A total of 12,141 buildings were officially either destroyed or severely damaged in Turkey.
Three people had been put behind bars by Sunday and seven more were detained – including two developers trying to relocate to the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
Last Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed 29,605 people in Turkey and 3,581 in Syria, officials and doctors said, bringing the total death toll to 33,186.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)