Turkiye-Syria Quake: Toll Crosses 36,000

‘Miracle’ rescues continued in Turkiye as rescuers pulled out several people alive from the rubble after one week and were trying to recover more people alive. In the hard-hit region of Kahramanmaras, rescuers were attempting to reach a grandmother, mother and daughter, all from one family, reported Reuters.

The combined death toll in Turkiye and Syria crossed 36,000 and the UN aid chief said that the rescue was “coming to a close”.

I have a very strong feeling we are going to get them,” said Burcu Baldauf, head of the Turkish voluntary healthcare team. “It’s already a miracle. After seven days, they are there with no water, no food and in good condition.”

The three generations of the family were trapped in a room in a remains of a three-storey building where rescuers dug a second tunnel to reach them after the first one was blocked, and a human chain was formed to carry rubble in a bucket.

While the ‘miracle’ survivors continued to be pulled out, desperation and grief has started to turn into anger and frustration as dozens of residents and overwhelmed first responders who spoke to Reuters expressed bewilderment at a lack of water, food, medicine, body bags and cranes in the disaster zone, with many criticising an overly slow and centralised response by Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).

Syrian Rebel Leader Pleads International Aid
Ahmed Hussein al-Shara, better known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, with a $10 million US government bounty on his head, has appealed for international aid in the northwest province of Idlib after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6 that have killed thousands.

“The United Nations needs to understand that it’s required to help in a crisis,” said Jolani amid a humanitarian crisis in the region that had already reached critical levels before the earthquake last week, reported Guardian.

“From the first hour of the earthquake, we sent messages to the United Nations asking for aid,” he told the Guardian in Idlib. “Unfortunately, no support for our search and rescue teams arrived, as well as no specific aid to combat this crisis.”

The humanitarian crisis resulting from 12 years of civil war in Syria’s Idlib province has just been compounded by the last week’s earthquake. These were homes of people already internally displaced once when the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and his backers in Moscow had attacked their villages, forcing them to seek shelter in Idlib.

Bashar al-Assad Agrees To Open 2 More Entry Points
Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad has agreed to open two more border crossing points to allow increased volume of emergency aid to reach the victims of earthquake. The decision was announced and welcomed by the UN Secretary General, who said that the two border crossing points between Turkey and north-west Syria, at Bab al-Salam and Al Ra’ee, would be open “for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid”.