The toll of the earthquake which struck Turkey and Syria continues to grow and exceeded 11,700 dead on Wednesday, the chances of survival dwindling two days following the disaster, and the rise of criticism in Turkey forced the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to acknowledge shortcomings in government response.
Twitter has become inaccessible on Turkey’s main mobile phone providers amid mounting online criticism of the authorities’ handling of the tragedy.
On the ground, rescuers have been working in freezing cold for two days following the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that shook southeast Turkey and neighboring northern Syria at dawn on Monday, followed by powerful followingshocks.
Bad weather complicates the task of rescue while the first 72 hours are crucial to find survivors, according to the head of the Turkish Red Crescent, Kerem Kinik.
In the Turkish province of Hatay (south), hard hit by the earthquake, children and adolescents have been removed from the rubble of a building. “Suddenly we heard voices and thanks to the excavator (…) we might immediately hear three people at the same time,” one of the rescuers, Alperen Cetinkayanous, told AFP. “We expect there to be more (…), the chances of being able to get people out alive from here are very high”.
In this province, the city of Antakya (ancient Antioch) is in ruins, drowned in a thick cloud of dust due to clearing machines digging through the rubble.
“Antakya is over”, repeat residents. As far as the eye can see, there are only totally or partially collapsed buildings. Even those who are still holding are deeply cracked and no one dares to stay there.
The official global casualty count stands at 11,719 dead, with nearly 50,000 injured in Turkey and 5,000 in Syria.
– “Where is the state?” –
Turkey officially deplores at least 9,057 dead. This is the worst toll since the 1999 earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.4 and which left 17,000 dead, including a thousand in Istanbul. In 1939, 33,000 people died in an earthquake in the province of Erzincan (East).
At the epicenter of the earthquake, in Kahramanmaras, a city of more than a million devastated and buried under snow, no help, no help had arrived on Tuesday.
“Where is the state? Where is it? (…) It’s been two days and we haven’t seen anyone. (…) The children froze to death”, protested Ali, who still hoped see his brother and his nephew, trapped in the ruins of their building.
In Adiyaman, another city in southern Turkey, there is still no rescuer or equipment in some disaster areas, noted an AFP journalist. The volunteers are doing their best but anger is rising in the population.
“Of course, there are shortcomings, it is impossible to be prepared for such a disaster,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pleaded on Wednesday, who visited the province of Hatay, on the Syrian border. .
“A few dishonest and dishonorable people have published false statements such as + we have not seen soldiers or police,” he denounced.
Turkish social media is flooded with messages from people complaining regarding a lack of rescue efforts and searches for victims in their areas, especially in the Hatay region.
Turkish police have arrested a dozen people since Monday’s earthquake over social media posts criticizing the government’s handling of the disaster.
Twitter was inaccessible on Wednesday, and internet governance watchdog netblocks.org said access to the social network was restricted “through several internet service providers in Turkey”.
International aid began arriving on Tuesday, with dozens of countries offering their services to Ankara including those from the European Union and the Gulf, the United States, China and even Ukraine which, despite the Russian invasion , sent 87 rescuers.
– “People are dying every second” –
In Syria, 2,662 bodies have so far been extracted from the rubble, according to authorities as well as rescuers in rebel areas.
Twenty-three million people are “potentially exposed, including around five million vulnerable people”, warned the World Health Organization (WHO).
In areas where help is slow to arrive, survivors feel quite alone. In Jandairis, in a rebel zone in Syria, “even the buildings that did not collapse were badly damaged”, explains Hassan, one of its inhabitants who wishes to remain anonymous.
“There are around 400 to 500 people trapped under each collapsed building with only 10 people trying to get them out. And there are no machines,” he adds.
In the village of Besnaya, on the border with Turkey, Malik Ibrahim tirelessly clears the rubble, looking for thirty members of his family, all buried under the ruins. Ten dead bodies have already been removed.
“There are 20 people left under the rubble. I have no words, it’s a disaster. Our memories are buried with them. We are a stricken people in every sense of the word,” said the 40-year-old who says he was forced to leave his home a few years ago because of the war to take refuge in Idlib.
In these circumstances, Turkey and Syria “can count” on the European Union, assured the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who announced that a donors’ conference would take place in March in Brussels.
“Put politics aside and let us do our humanitarian work,” said UN coordinator in Syria El-Mostafa Benlamlih in an interview with AFP. “We cannot afford to wait and negotiate. If we wait to negotiate, it will already be too late,” he added.
In the rebel areas, the White Helmets (civil protection volunteers) implored the international community to send aid. “People are dying every second under the rubble,” spokesman Mohammad al-Shebli told AFP.
In Aleppo, in the government zone, Russian soldiers rescued a man from the rubble overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced. A total of 42 people have been rescued since the earthquake by Russian soldiers, of whom more than 300 are involved in the rescue, according to the Russian army.
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