Rescuers raced on Tuesday to rescue survivors from the rubble of thousands of buildings brought down by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and multiple aftershocks that struck eastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria, with the discovery of more bodies raising the death toll to 4,600.
Countries around the world dispatched teams to assist in the rescue efforts, but a day after the earthquake struck the number of emergency crews on the ground remained few, with their efforts impeded by frigid temperatures and close to 200 aftershocks, which made the search through unstable structures perilous.
Nurgul Atay said she could hear her mother’s voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, but that her and others efforts to get into the ruins had been futile without any rescue crews and heavy equipment to help.
“If only we could lift the concrete slab we’d be able to reach her.
“My mother is 70-years-old, she won’t be able to withstand this for long,” she said.
Across Hatay province, just southwest of the earthquake’s epicentre, officials say as many as 1,500 buildings were destroyed and many people reported relatives being trapped under the rubble with no aid or rescue teams arriving.
According to AP, in areas where teams worked, occasional cheers broke out through the night as survivors were brought out of the rubble.
READ ALSO: Second earthquake hits Turkey as death toll surpasses 1,000
The quake, which was centered in Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo.
The medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders confirmed Tuesday that one of its staff members was among the dead after his house in Syria’s Idlib province collapsed, and that others had lost family members.
“We are very shocked and saddened by the impact of this disaster on the thousands of people touched by it, including our colleagues and their families,” Sebastien Gay, the group’s head of mission in Syria, said.
Gay said health facilities in northern Syria were overwhelmed with medical personnel working around “around the clock to respond to the huge numbers of wounded.”
In Turkey’s Hatay province, thousands of people sheltered in sports centers or fair halls, while others spent the night outside, huddled in blankets around fires.
A navy ship docked on Tuesday at the province’s port of Iskenderun, where a hospital collapsed, to transport survivors in need of medical care to the nearby city of Mersin.
Thick, black smoke rose from another area of the port, where firefighters have not yet been able to douse a fire that broke out among shipping containers that were toppled by the earthquake.
In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, a provincial capital about 33 kilometers (20 miles) from the epicenter, people took refuge in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centers.
At least 3,381 people were killed in 10 Turkish provinces, with more than 20,000 injured, according to the latest figures from Turkish authorities on Tuesday.
The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed to 769 people, with some 1,450 injured, according to the Health Ministry.
In the country’s rebel-held northwest, groups that operate there said at least 450 people died, with many hundreds injured. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared seven days of national mourning.
More than 7,800 people were rescued across 10 provinces, according to Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkey’s disaster management authority.
The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.
The U.S. Geological Survey measured Monday’s quake at 7.8, with a depth of 18 kilometers (11 miles). Hours later, another quake, likely triggered by the first, struck more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) away with 7.5 magnitude.
The second jolt caused a multistory apartment building in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa to topple onto the street in a cloud of dust as bystanders screamed, according to video of the scene.
Thousands of buildings were reported collapsed in a wide area extending from Syria’s cities of Aleppo and Hama to Turkey’s Diyarbakir, more than 330 kilometers (200 miles) to the northeast.
- SAHCO wins British Airways Punctuality Award - May 16, 2024
- Students injured in OAU classroom collapse - May 16, 2024
- Emirates Airlines returns to Nigeria, begins Dubai flights Oct 1 - May 16, 2024
