GAZIANTEP,
Turkey — Rescuers in Turkey and Syria were desperately combing the rubble
in search of survivors after a series of powerful earthquakes collapsed
thousands of buildings, killed more than 4,800 people, and raised the specter
of a new humanitarian disaster in an area already wracked by war, a refugee
crisis, deep economic troubles, and near-freezing temperatures, the New York
Times reported.
اضافة اعلان
The
World Health Organization warned the number of casualties could exceed 20,000,
according to The Guardian.
Catherine
Smallwood, the WHO senior emergency officer for Europe, told the AFP the death
toll could increase “eightfold” on the initial numbers, speaking when the
estimated toll stood at 2,600.
“We
always see the same thing with earthquakes, unfortunately, which is that the
initial reports of the numbers of people who have died or who have been injured
will increase quite significantly in the week that follows.”
Here
are other key developments:
— Almost
3,000 buildings collapsed across Turkey alone after the initial quake,
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. “We do not know where the number of dead
and injured can go,” he said.
— In
Syria, rescue workers used headlamps and flood lights to work throughout the
night. Turkey’s relief agency AFAD said there were 3,381 deaths in the country.
The death toll in Syria stood at 1,444, The Guardian reported.
—
Videos shared on social media from Turkey and across the border in Syria showed
destroyed buildings and rescue crews searching through piles of rubble for
survivors. Some people fled their homes in the rain and took shelter in cars in
near-freezing temperatures.
—
Governments around the world quickly responded to Turkey’s request for
international assistance, deploying rescue teams and offers of aid.
—
Earthquakes occur frequently in Turkey, which sits on fault lines. Recent
quakes in the region have caused deadly landslides.
‘Mired
in crisis’
Once again, Syrians heard the roar and thud of buildings coming
down, once again saw dust rising from the mounds of gray, jagged concrete and twisted
metal where houses and offices had stood. Once again, people dug in the ruins
with their hands, hoping, often in vain, to save the people they loved.
Across northwestern Syria on Monday, apartment blocks, shops,
even entire neighborhoods were wiped out in seconds by a powerful earthquake,
in scenes that were all too familiar to a region devastated by more than a
decade of civil war, the New York Times reported.
Millions of people displaced by the years of fighting have fled
to the north, the only place that remains outside government control. They
sheltered in tents, ancient ruins and any other place they could find after
their former homes were destroyed.
The economic collapse the war brought on had made it impossible
for many of them to get a decent meal. This winter’s fuel crisis had them
shivering in their beds, without heat. Syria’s wrecked infrastructure had
caused thousands to fall sick with cholera in recent months; the ruin of its
hospitals meant many could get no health care.
Then came Monday’s earthquake.
“How can we tolerate all this?” said Ibrahim Al-Khatib, a
resident of Taftanaz in northwestern Syria who was startled from his sleep
early in the morning and rushed into the street along with his neighbors. “With
the Russian airstrikes, and then Bashar al-Assad’s attacks, and today the
earthquake?”
‘Emergency within an emergency’ in Syria
At a hospital just outside Idlib, Syria, “every moment, fresh
bodies were being brought in,” said Dr Osama Salloum. One boy, estimated to be
about six years old, died as Salloum performed CPR on him. “I saw the life
leave his face,” he said.
“We kept looking up to the sky for jets,” Salloum said. “My mind
was playing tricks on me, telling me it was war again.”
Mark Kaye, spokesperson for the International Rescue Committee,
echoed many UN and aid groups’ pleas for more aid to be sent to Syria in the earthquake’s
aftermath. “Anywhere else in the world, this would be an emergency,” he said.
“What we have in Syria is an emergency within an emergency.”
Much of Syria still bears the scars of the conflict, which has
been in a fragile cease-fire since early 2020. Faced with sanctions, no
reconstruction aid from international donors and its own economy in shambles,
rebuilding has been piecemeal and limited.
The war’s toll — massive destruction, an acute economic crisis,
a collapsing currency — will make responding to the quake even more difficult
for all sides.
Although emergency crews across the stricken area responded
quickly, digging in the freezing cold and the rain, the scale of the
destruction was too great even for rescuers accustomed to collapsed buildings.
There was not enough rescue equipment to keep up with the large
numbers of people trapped in the debris. Buildings that survived the powerful
7.8-magnitude initial earthquake collapsed from the repeated aftershocks,
reflecting the fragile state of Syria’s infrastructure after years of
airstrikes and artillery bombardments.
In Aleppo, Syria, residents said people too afraid to stay in
buildings that might yet collapse were camping in cars in open spaces such as
soccer fields.
The northwestern corner of the country, along the border with
Turkey, is controlled by Turkish-based opposition groups and home to about 4.6
million people. Tens of thousands of people in that area were newly homeless,
said Raed Saleh, director of the White Helmets, a civil defense and rescue
group that operates in areas outside government control.
Camps for those displaced by the war were full, already housing
some of the 2.7 million people who had come to the northwest from other parts
of the country.
Scenes from hospitals resembled those from the height of the
fighting, as wards overflowed with patients sharing beds and doctors treating
victims in every corner.
Even though major hostilities have ended, the healthcare system
still has not recovered. Only about 45 percent of Syria’s prewar healthcare
facilities are now operating, according to the International Rescue Committee.
Until now, there has not been any large-scale effort to rebuild
Syria’s ruined infrastructure, something the government blames at least partly
on Western sanctions.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
