ANTIOCH, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Tuesday that more than 35,000 people have died in Turkey as a result of last week’s earthquakes, making it the worst disaster of its kind since the founding of the country 100 years ago.
Although the death toll is almost certain to rise further, many of the tens of thousands of survivors left homeless were still struggling to meet basic needs, such as finding shelter from the bitter cold.
Confirmed deaths in Turkey exceeded those recorded in the Great Erzincan earthquake of 1939, which killed an estimated 33,000 people.
Erdogan added that 105,505 people were injured by the February 6 earthquake centered on Kahramanmaras and its aftershocks. Nearly 3,700 deaths have been confirmed in neighboring Syria, bringing the total number of fatalities in both countries to more than 39,000.
The Turkish president, who has referred to the quake as “the disaster of the century”, said more than 13,000 people were still receiving medical care in hospitals.
After a five-hour cabinet meeting at the headquarters of the AFAD disaster relief agency, Erdogan reported that 47,000 buildings, containing 211,000 homes, had been destroyed or were damaged enough to require demolition.
“We will continue our work until we get the last citizen out of the destroyed buildings,” Erdogan said in Ankara of the rescue efforts.
Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies and governments redoubled their efforts to send aid to the areas of Syria and Turkey affected by the earthquakes.
The situation was particularly desperate in Syria, where 12 years of civil war have complicated aid efforts and spawned disputes over how to get aid into the country, let alone distribute it. Some people claimed that they have not received anything yet. In Turkey, meanwhile, families crammed into train carriages.
The Syrian Ministry of Health announced a final tally of 1,414 deaths and 1,357 injuries in areas under government control.
On Tuesday, the United Nations launched an appeal to raise $397 million to provide “desperately needed and vital aid to nearly 5 million Syrians” over three months. The world body had announced an agreement with Damascus the day before to send UN aid through two other border crossings from Turkey to rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria, but the needs remain enormous.
Ahmed Ismail Suleiman prepared a blanket shelter in front of his damaged house in the town of Jinderis, one of the hardest-hit communities in northwestern Syria. He feared moving his family back into a house that might not be structurally sound, so 18 people slept rough under the makeshift tent.
“We sit, but we can’t sleep lying here,” he said. “We are waiting for a suitable store.”
Mahmoud Haffar, director of the town hall, said that residents have been able to obtain some 2,500 tents, but some 1,500 families remain without shelter, as temperatures drop at night to minus 4 degrees Celsius (26 degrees Celsius). Fahrenheit).
“We keep hearing the question of when help will arrive,” Haffar said.
Although tents have been in short supply, one woman said the town had a surplus of donated bread and water.
To the southwest, in the government-controlled Latakia region, Raeefa Breemo said only those who had taken refuge in shelters appeared to be receiving help.
“We need to eat, we need to drink, we need to survive. Our jobs, our lives, everything has stopped,” Breemo said.
Offers of help, from rescue teams and doctors to generators and food, have poured in from around the world, but the needs remain immense after the magnitude 7.8 quake and powerful aftershocks flattened or damaged tens of thousands of buildings, destroyed roads and caused the closure of airports for a time. The earthquake affected 10 Turkish provinces in which some 13.5 million people live, as well as a large area of northwest Syria in which millions of people live.
Much of the quake-affected region’s water supply system was not working, and the Turkish Health Minister stated that samples taken at dozens of points in the system indicated that the water was unfit for consumption.
In the Turkish port city of Alexandretta, displaced families have been sheltering in train carriages since last week.
Although many have left in recent days for nearby camps or other parts of Turkey, dozens were still living on the trains on Tuesday.
“The wagons have become our home,” Nida Karahan, 50, told the Andalou Agency.
A first aid plane sent by Saudi Arabia, carrying 35 tonnes of food, landed in the government-controlled Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, but getting aid to the rebel-held region of Idlib has been particularly difficult. .
Until the agreement reached on Monday between the UN and the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, the world body had only been able to deliver aid in the area through a single border crossing with Turkey, or through government territory.
The newly opened Bab al-Salam and Al Raée border crossings will operate for an initial period of three months. Russia opposed suggestions that the opening of the passes could be made permanent, and its foreign ministry accused Western countries of trying to bring aid “exclusively” to areas not controlled by the Syrian government.
Major humanitarian organizations welcomed the news but warned that logistical problems remain, even as the first UN aid convoy of 11 trucks entered northwestern Syria via Bab al-Salam on Tuesday.
“This is a constant give and take in the negotiations,” said World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier. “All parties have to agree to receive convoys.”
The death toll in both countries is almost certain to rise as search teams turn up more bodies, and the chances of finding more survivors dwindle.
However, more than 200 hours after the quake, professor Emine Akgul was taken from an apartment building in Antioch by a mining search and rescue team, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
In Adiyaman province, rescuers reached 18-year-old Muhammed Cafer Cetin. Medics put him through an intravenous line with fluid before attempting the dangerous extraction from a building that kept collapsing as rescuers worked. Paramedics fitted him with a neck brace before taking him out on a stretcher with an oxygen mask, according to footage from Turkish television.
Many in Turkey attributed the scale of the disaster to poor construction, and authorities continued to search for contractors presumably connected to buildings that collapsed. Turkey has introduced building regulations that meet anti-seismic engineering standards, but experts said those protocols are often not followed.
Erdogan announced on Tuesday that the government planned to start building some 30,000 houses in March.
“Our goal is to complete the construction of high-quality and safe buildings in one year to cover the housing needs in the entire area affected by the earthquake,” he said.
In a temporary shelter set up in a sports center in Afrin, northwestern Syria, 190 families slept on the floor of the basketball court, lying on mats that are usually used for training. Families tried to get some privacy by placing blankets on pillars or on sports bars.
Sabah el Khodr said that she and her two small children had been ill for nine days. The children were wrapped in blankets and slept on the ground of the court.
Local officials said the shelter is temporary, until new tents are found.
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Bilginsoy and Wilks reported from Istanbul. Armangue from Antioch, Turkey. Associated Press writers Abby Sewell and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Edith M. Lederer in New York contributed to this report.
