Turkish rescue workers loaded Ergin Guzeloglan, 36, into an ambulance on Saturday after pulling him out of a collapsed building in Hatay, southern Turkey, five days after a devastating earthquake area.
Can Ozer/AP
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Turkish rescue workers loaded Ergin Guzeloglan, 36, into an ambulance on Saturday after pulling him out of a collapsed building in Hatay, southern Turkey, five days after a devastating earthquake area.
Can Ozer/AP
ANTAKYA, Turkey— Rescue crews on Saturday pulled more survivors, including families, from toppled buildings, though hopes are dwindling as the death toll in the earthquake The horror that occurred in the border area between Turkey and Syria five days ago exceeded 25,000 people.
Dramatic rescues were broadcast on Turkish television, including the rescue of Narli’s family in central Kahramanmaras 133 hours after Monday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake. First, Nehir Naz Narli, 12, was saved, then both her parents.
That comes after the earlier rescue of a family of five in a wreckage in the devastated town of Nurdagi, Gaziantep province, television network HaberTurk reported. Rescuers cheered and chanted, “Great God!” as the last member of the family, the father, was brought to safety.
Turkish President Recep Tayypi Erdogan, during a tour of quake-hit cities, raised the death toll in Turkey to 21,848, bringing the total death toll in the region, including the government and regions. rebel-controlled Syria, to 25,401.
Erdogan said a disaster of this scale is very rare, affecting a large area and inhabited by so many people. He called it the “disaster of the century” and said it affected an area 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter, home to 13.5 million people in Turkey, and zero. identified in Syria.
“In some areas of our settlement near the fault line, we can say that there are hardly any standing stones left,” he said earlier on Saturday from Diyarbakir.
However, that day brought one incredible rescue after another, amounting to more than a dozen people.
Melisa Ulku, a woman in her 20s, was pulled from the rubble in Elbistan in the 132nd hour since the earthquake, after rescuing another person at the same location in the same hour. Before rescuing her, police announced that people should not cheer or clap so as not to hinder other rescue efforts nearby. She was covered with a thermal blanket on a stretcher. Rescuers hugged each other. Some shouted “God is great!”
Just an hour earlier, a 3-year-old girl and her father were pulled from the rubble in the town of Islahiye, also in Gaziantep province, and shortly after, a 7-year-old girl was rescued in Hatay province. .
The rescues brought a shimmer of joy amid days of heavy destruction following Monday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake and a powerful aftershock hours later that collapsed thousands of buildings, killing thousands of buildings. More than 25,000 people died, 80,000 others were injured, and millions were left homeless.
Not everything ends so well. Rescuers reached a 13-year-old girl inside the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay province early Saturday morning and intubated her. But she died before medical teams could amputate a limb and free her from the wreckage, Hurriyet newspaper reported.
Although experts say those trapped can live for a week or more, the odds of finding more survivors are rapidly dwindling amid freezing temperatures. Rescuers are turning to thermal cameras to help identify life among the wreckage, a sign that any survivors may be too weak to call for help.
As aid continued to arrive, a 99-member team from the Indian Army’s medical support team began treating the wounded at a makeshift field hospital in the southern city of Iskenderun, where one The main hospital was destroyed.
One man, Sukru Canbulat, was brought to the hospital in a wheelchair, his left leg severely injured with bruises, bruises and multiple lacerations.
Wincing in pain, he said he was rescued from a collapsed apartment building in the nearby city of Antakya within hours of Monday’s earthquake. But after receiving basic first aid, he was released without proper wound treatment.
“I buried (all the people I lost), then here I come,” Canbulat said as he counted his dead relatives: “My daughter is dead, my siblings are dead, my aunt is dead. and her dead daughter, and her son’s wife.” 8 and a half months pregnant.
A large temporary cemetery is under construction on the outskirts of Antakya on Saturday. Excavators and bulldozers dug holes in the fields on the northeastern edge of the city as trucks and ambulances loaded with black body bags kept arriving. Soldiers directing traffic on an adjacent busy road warned motorists not to take pictures.
Hundreds of graves, spaced no more than 3 feet (1 meter) apart, are marked with simple wooden planks set upright on the ground.
An employee of Turkey’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, who did not wish to be identified because of an order not to share information with the media, said about 800 bodies had been brought to the cemetery on Friday, the first day of the cemetery. come into operation. As of Saturday afternoon, up to 2,000 people had been buried, he said.
“The people who come out of the rubble now, if they survived it would be a miracle. Most of the people who came out now are already dead, and here they come,” he said.
Temperatures remained below freezing across large areas and many people were without shelter. The Turkish government has distributed millions of hot meals, as well as tents and blankets, but is still struggling to reach many in need.
The disaster added suffering to an area besieged by Syria’s 12-year civil war, displaced millions in the country and made them dependent on aid. The fighting has prompted millions more to seek refuge in Turkey.
The conflict has isolated many parts of Syria and complicated efforts to receive aid. The United Nations said the first quake-related aid convoy traveled from Turkey to northwestern Syria on Friday, a day after the aid shipment was scheduled before the disaster.
The United Nations refugee agency estimates that up to 5.3 million people have been displaced in Syria.
President Bashar Assad and his wife visited earthquake victims at a hospital in the coastal city of Latakia, a base in support of the Syrian leader.
Syrian state television said Mr Assad and his wife Asma on Saturday morning visited Duha Nurallah, 60, and her son Ibrahim Zakariya, 22, who were pulled from the rubble the night before in Syria. nearby seaside town of Jableh.
State news agency SANA reported that the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, arrived in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Saturday, carrying 35 tons of medical equipment. He said another plane carrying an additional 30 tons of medical equipment would arrive in the coming days.
The opposition Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said on Saturday that it was “almost impossible to find survivors.”
The total death toll in the rebel-held area of northwestern Syria has reached 2,166, many of them women and children. The total death toll in Syria stands at 3,553, while in Turkey, officials count 21,043 deaths as of Saturday.
