Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll tops 15,000

More than three days after the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake and series of after­shocks in Turkey and Syr­ia that killed more than 15,000 peo­ple, res­cuers res­cued many sur­vivors from the rub­ble of col­lapsed build­ings on Thurs­day, but many more. Hopes of find­ing sur­vivors are fading.

Para­medics oper­at­ing dur­ing the night in Antakya pulled the girl from the ruins and res­cued her father alive two hours lat­er, accord­ing to the IHA news agency.

In Diyarbakir, east of Antakya, res­cuers freed an injured woman from a col­lapsed build­ing ear­ly in the morn­ing, but found three peo­ple dead in the rub­ble next to her, accord­ing to the DHA news agency. It is said that

In Turkey, 12,391 peo­ple were killed and more than 60,000 injured, accord­ing to the coun­try’s Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Agency. More than 2,900 peo­ple were report­ed dead on the Syr­i­an side.

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple are believed to have lost their homes. In Antakya, for­mer res­i­dents of a col­lapsed build­ing hud­dled around a bon­fire on Thurs­day night, wrap­ping them­selves in blan­kets to try to keep warm.

Ser­ap Arslan said many peo­ple, includ­ing his moth­er and broth­er, remained under the rub­ble of a near­by build­ing. It was­n’t until Wednes­day that machines start­ed mov­ing some of the heavy con­crete, he said.

The 45-year-old said he “tried to clear it on our own, but unfor­tu­nate­ly we weren’t strong enough.”

Wip­ing tears with her gloved hands, Selen Eki­men explained that her par­ents and her broth­er are still buried.

She has­n’t heard from me for days.” “None”.

Experts say the win­dow for sur­vival is rapid­ly shrink­ing for those trapped under rub­ble and those unable to meet their basic needs. At the same time, he said, “It’s too ear­ly to give up hope.”

“The first 72 hours are con­sid­ered crit­i­cal,” said Stephen God­by, a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter expert at Not­ting­ham Trent Uni­ver­si­ty in the UK. 22%, 6% on the fifth day. ”

Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan vis­it­ed the hard-hit Hatay province on Wednes­day, where res­i­dents crit­i­cized the gov­ern­men­t’s efforts to slow the arrival of rescuers.

Accord­ing to the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Agency, more than 110,000 res­cue teams have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the res­cue oper­a­tion, and more than 5,500 vehi­cles includ­ing trac­tors, cranes, bull­doz­ers and exca­va­tors are deployed.

But the task is daunt­ing, as thou­sands of build­ings have col­lapsed in the disaster.

Erdo­gan, who faces a tough re-elec­tion cam­paign in May, admit­ted there were prob­lems with his emer­gency response to Mon­day’s 7.8‑magnitude earth­quake, but said win­ter weath­er was a factor.

The earth­quake also destroyed the run­way at Hatay Air­port, fur­ther ham­per­ing the response.

“It is impos­si­ble to pre­pare for such a cat­a­stro­phe,” Erdo­gan declared. He crit­i­cized the gov­ern­men­t’s actions for “not aban­don­ing a sin­gle cit­i­zen” and say­ing that “dis­grace­ful peo­ple” were spread­ing “lies and slander”.