A week has passed since the devastating earthquake of the century in Turkey and Syria, where efforts to evacuate people buried under the debris are still ongoing, while the total death toll in both countries has reached close to 34,000.
Officials said that the number of dead people in Turkey has reached 29 thousand 695 and in Syria 4 thousand 300.
Rescuers pulled a woman, Sebel Kaya, alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey today, CNN Turk reported, while another team dug a tunnel to reach a possible location. But a 30-day-old baby and his mother and grandmother are trapped.
The broadcaster reported that rescue workers had made contact with three survivors (a mother, daughter and child) in the rubble of a building in the Turkish province of Kahramanmaras.
A United Nations agency said that 29,695 people have been killed in the deadliest earthquake since 1939 in Turkey, more than 4,300 people have been killed and 7,600 injured in northwestern Syria.
Engineer officer Halil Kaya said rescuers hoping to reach the three survivors in Kahramanmaras included a Turkish military team, miners and Spanish firefighters who were first spotted by a tracking dog. Artifacts were reported to be present.
A thermal scan later indicated that there were living people about 5 meters deep inside the building, with miners excavating about 3 meters from inside a nearby building.
He said that the workers with us are busy working here 24 hours a day and we will stay here till we get the living people out.
Turkey says that about 80,000 earthquake victims are currently in hospitals, while 1 million victims are living in temporary camps.
This earthquake is being described as the sixth destructive earthquake of this century, the fifth deadliest earthquake occurred in Pakistan in 2005 in which about 73 thousand people died.
Security concerns
Business owners in Antakya, one of Turkey’s worst-hit cities, evacuated their shops to prevent looters from stealing their goods.
Refugees and aid workers from other cities cited a worsening security situation, with shops widely looted and homes destroyed.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has warned that ‘the government will deal strictly with looters’.
It should be noted that the government’s strategy in response to the earthquake before the June elections is being criticized.
Turkey’s Health Minister Farahtin Koca said rabies and tetanus vaccines had been sent to earthquake-affected areas and mobile pharmacies had begun operating, amid concerns about hygiene and the spread of infection in the region.
Aid difficulties in Syria
Syria’s rebel-held northwest was hardest hit by the quake, once again displacing many of those already displaced by the decade-old civil war, the government said. This area has received very little aid as compared to the areas administered by
The United States calls on the Syrian government and all parties to immediately provide humanitarian access to all those in need.
Spokesman Jens Laerke said the UN hopes to speed up cross-border aid operations by opening two additional border crossings between Turkey and opposition-held territory in Syria.
United Nations Ambassador to Syria Geir Pedersen said that the United Nations is collecting funds to help Syria. It is time to unite for the sake of effort.
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2024-09-01 23:10:06
