Survivors were rescued on the ninth day…and the missing are an obsession and pain
Wednesday – 24 Rajab 1444 AH – 15 February 2023 AD Issue Number [16150]
Ankara: Said Abdel Razek – Kahraman Marash: Thaer Abbas
Fears of a major health catastrophe have exacerbated in the earthquake-hit regions in northern and southern Turkey on the sixth of this month, in light of the transfer of the afflicted to camps that suffer from a lack of basic materials, medical materials, and antimicrobial preparations, and where waste is spread.
The World Health Organization issued a warning stating that the number of people affected by the earthquake in the two countries may exceed 23 million, including regarding 5 million in a fragile situation. The organization expressed its concern regarding “a major health crisis whose damage may exceed the losses of the earthquake,” and its fears regarding “the spread of the cholera epidemic that has re-emerged in Syria,” and the presence of “huge numbers of dead bodies left by the earthquake.”
Meanwhile, rescue teams managed to pull out new survivors on the ninth day of the earthquake yesterday, as a woman was removed following staying 203 hours under the rubble of a building in Hatay, Turkey, and two brothers, aged 17 and 21, who remained under the rubble of a building in Kahramanmarash for 198 hours. .
While attempts to return to normal life began in the centers of the ten affected Turkish cities, the issue of the missing emerged as a preoccupation for the authorities and pain for their relatives. Asharq Al-Awsat observed the case of Ghalib, who was standing in a public garden near a hotel in the heart of Kahramanmaraş, watching silently and tensely the mechanisms for removing the rubble, waiting for news regarding his brother who was with 9 of his colleagues in the heart of the rubble. “I want to take him home with me,” Ghaleb said, hoping to find his brother alive.
Turkish fears of a health disaster and the spread of epidemics in the affected areas
