The death toll surpassed 5,000 people across Turkey and Syria on Tuesday as the frantic search for survivors from two powerful earthquakes and series of violent aftershocks continued for a second day.
The temblors toppled more than 6,000 buildings. In Turkey alone more than 24,000 rescue workers, some from around the world, were picking through mammoth heaps of debris seeking signs of life.
“We are facing one of the biggest disasters not only of the history of the Turkish Republic but also of … the world,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.
Amid the overwhelming tragedy, small victories were being won. In Kahramanmaras, rescuers pulled concrete slabs away from Onur Dobuoglu, 25, who had been trapped for 30 hours. Dobuoglu was taken by ambulance to the hospital with a fractured foot and arms.
Rescue team member Turgut Dolanbay told the Turkish Anadolu News Agency the team focused on the site after hearing Dobuoglu calling out. His uncle, Sefa Gedik, hugged rescuers after reuniting with his nephew.
“May Allah help everyone, and we wish everyone to be saved,” Gedik said.
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Developments:
►About 380,000 survivors have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said.
►More than a dozen people faced investigation for alleged “provocative” earthquake social media postings that authorities said tried to foment “fear and panic,” local news media reported.
►Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said one Italian – businessman Angelo Zen, 50, from Venice – was missing in Turkey. Family members said they believe Zen had traveled to the quake area.
►Some bastions of historical Gaziantep Castle were destroyed by the earthquake, officials said. The castle dates back to the second century.
►Christian Atsu, a former striker with Chelsea and Newcastle in the British Premier League, was successfully rescued from the rubble of the collapsed building and is receiving treatment,” the Ghana Football Association tweeted. Atsu, 31, signed with a Turkish team last year.
►Turkish Airlines said it shuttled 80 flights with almost 12,000 volunteers into the earthquake zone in southern Turkey on Tuesday. CEO Bilal Eksi said the flights would continue as long as necessary.
Infant rescued after being born under rubble
Residents digging through a collapsed building in northwest Syria discovered a crying infant whose mother appears to have given birth to her while buried beneath rubble, relatives and a doctor said Tuesday. The newborn girl’s umbilical cord was still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who died in the building collapse, they said.
The baby was the only member of her immediate family to survive in the small town of Jinderis, next to the Turkish border, Ramadan Sleiman, a relative, told the Associated Press.
The physician, Hani Maarouf, estimated the baby was born several hours before being found, given the amount her temperature had dropped.
“Had the girl been left for an hour more, she would have died,” he said.
California quakes not unlike those in Turkey
California and Turkey are not drastically different when it comes to earthquakes, except they should be more frequent in California, said Robert Muir-Wood, chief research officer at the risk management firm Moody’s RMS. Turkey earthquakes are big, principally “strike-slip and on a broad plate boundary,” he said. Faults that move horizontally are known as strike-slip faults.
Earthquake residential insurance penetration in Turkey is higher than in California, but building code compliance is much better in California, Muir-Wood said.
“Such earthquakes should be at least twice as common in California,” he said.
Electric, natural gas infrastructure severely damaged
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez said the quakes had inflicted severe damage on electricity and natural gas transmission and distribution lines. State pipeline operator BOTAŞ and major power supplier Enerjisa said they were examining and repairing damage around the clock “under very difficult weather and terrain conditions.”
Some repair works has been completed, yet some regions were not supplied with power for safety reasons, Engerjis said.
30 hours after collapse, survivors freed from rubble
In Turkey’s southernmost Hatay province, the Daily Sabah reported that a 16-year-old girl was rescued after being trapped under the debris of a five-story building for nearly 22 hours. Five more survivors were found nearly 30 hours after the 7.7 magnitude quake in the downtown Antakya district. Rescue teams also dug out four other people in two separate nearby wreckages. A few hours later, teams extricated a mother and her two daughters alive from under a building.
Crews rescued from another wreckage a child and his big sister, and rescuers said they her their cries of “I’m scared, I can’t get out,” as workers rushed to free them.
In Syria, no end in sight to suffering
In Northwest Syria, the quake leveled towns in a region already under siege. Millions of people have been displaced by a civil war that has dragged on for more than a decade. The quake death toll in Syria has exceeded 1,450 and is expected to rise. Sanctions made rebuilding difficult amid the fighting, and the task just became more daunting .
Khaled Hboubati, head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, appealed to lift the siege and economic sanctions imposed on Syria.
“We need heavy equipment, ambulances and firefighting vehicles to continue to rescue and remove the rubble, and this entails lifting sanctions on Syria as soon as possible,” Hboubati said Tuesday. “Our volunteers are ready, but we lack equipment.”
Turkey declares 3-month state of emergency
Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in 10 southern provinces. Flags were lowered to half-staff as the country observes seven days of national mourning. He said 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected in some way by the disaster.
“Our biggest relief is that over 8,000 of our citizens have been rescued from the rubble so far,” Erdogan said.
Children among the most vulnerable
UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said its immediate focus is on ensuring children and families have access to safe drinking water and sanitation services, reuniting kids with families, “psychological first aid” and getting schools, now many being used for temporary housing, reopened for education. Displaced families in northwest Syria and Syrian refugee families living in Turkey in informal settlements are among the most vulnerable, UNICEF spokesman James Elder said.
“Communities are grappling with an ongoing cholera outbreak and heavy rain and snow,” Elder said. “In this context, and one of more than a decade of conflict, this earthquake is utterly unbearable.”
Wintry weather impedes search for the living
Attempts to reach survivors were impeded by temperatures below freezing and close to 200 aftershocks, which made the search through unstable structures perilous.
Nurgul Atay told The Associated Press 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 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,” Atay said. “My mother is 70-years-old; she won’t be able to withstand this for long.”
The massive relief operation often struggled to reach devastated towns, and voices that had been crying out from the rubble fell silent.
“We could hear their voices, they were calling for help,” said Ali Silo, whose two relatives could not be saved in the Turkish town of Nurdag.
PREVIOUSLY:Frantic search for survivors after massive earthquake rocks Turkey, Syria; Over 5,000 dead
Thousands are left homeless
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. In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, a provincial capital about 20 miles from the epicenter, people took refuge in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centers.
On the Syrian side, the affected area is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Strained medical centers overflowed with the wounded, rescue workers said. Some buildings remained standing but were no longer structurally sound and had to be emptied, including a maternity hospital, according to the Syrian American Medical Society.
“We’ve been receiving victims of the quake as they come in, all while simultaneously working to guarantee the well-being of our over 1,700 staff members in Syria, and the 90 at the epicenter near Gaziantep,” SAMS President, Dr. Amjad Rass said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
