The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey and
northern Syria in early February killed tens of thousands of people, flattened
city blocks, and sent the region, already grappling with a refugee crisis and
over a decade of war, into a monumental recovery effort.
اضافة اعلان
The tollAs of Saturday morning, the death toll in
Syria and Turkey combined had surpassed 23,600. In Turkey, medics and officials said that over 20,213
people had died; in Syria, the death toll is 3,553, according to official
number.
Thousands of buildings were destroyed or rendered unstable,
leaving staggering numbers of people without shelter in rain, snow and
temperatures that often dip below freezing. Millions of people are in need of
aid, according to relief agencies; in Syria alone, the UN said the earthquake
had affected 10.9 million people.
In the bitter cold, rescue workers have pulled thousands of
survivors from the rubble, but experts say that the chances of rescuing more
decline dramatically a few days after a quake.
The situation for survivors in both Syria and Turkey is dire,
with people reluctant to return to their homes and using bonfires of wreckage
to stay warm, huddling in cars, and suffering frequent power outages and
shortages of fuel. They also face shortages of food and medical supplies.
The aidTurkey has imposed a three-month state of emergency in 10
provinces, and the national emergency agency has dispatched more than 92,000
tents; 98,000 Turkish and foreign workers; and 5,000 vehicles, including
excavators, cranes, and tow trucks. Dozens of countries have sent teams and
supplies, and in some places local authorities have contributed to rescue and
relief efforts.
In the bitter cold, rescue workers have pulled thousands of survivors from the rubble, but experts say that the chances of rescuing more decline dramatically a few days after a quake.
The quake zone in Turkey stretches across more than 320km, from
the Mediterranean in the south across mountains and to the east-central
highlands and into northwestern Syria. Snow-covered mountain passes, buckled
highways and buildings that collapsed over roads have all delayed the arrival
of rescue teams and aid.
Getting help to Syria has been more delayed. After years of
conflict and a severe humanitarian crisis, there are added challenges to helping
survivors. It was not until Thursday for the first UN aid convoy to cross from
Turkey into northwest Syria.
The Syrian borderIn the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the only UN-approved
crossing for transporting international aid into northwestern Syria was, for a
time, not functioning because of damage in the area, according to UN officials.
But aid convoys soon started crossing with food, clothes,
blankets, and other supplies — received by exhausted and frustrated rescuers
and doctors who say it is still not nearly enough, especially in a region where
many people were displaced by war and struggling to survive before the
earthquake.
Much of the international aid to Syria from the UN and other
agencies flows through the capital, Damascus, allowing the government to limit
what goes to opposition-held areas. UN agencies must get permission to then
deliver some of the aid across front lines, to opposition-held areas, requests
that are often denied.
UN officials have said they are negotiating with Syria’s
government to make more deliveries, and the EU has said it would work with the UN
to deliver aid as well.
The Syrian government has blamed US sanctions for deepening the
humanitarian disaster the country has suffered since the earthquake. Those
sanctions do not target humanitarian aid, and the State Department has rejected
calls to lift them, saying that aid efforts were not impeded by the policy and
that Assad’s government should open more border crossings.
Syria has been under US sanctions since 1979, when Washington
designated it a state sponsor of terrorism. The White House tightened the
restrictions further amid the Iraq war in 2004 and repeatedly once civil war
broke out in 2011, which led to a collapse in relations between Syria’s
government and the west, according to the Guardian.
Much of the international aid to Syria from the UN and other agencies flows through the capital, Damascus, allowing the government to limit what goes to opposition-held areas. UN agencies must get permission to then deliver some of the aid across front lines, to opposition-held areas, requests that are often denied.
On Thursday, The US Treasury announced a 180-day exemption to
its sanctions on Syria for “all transactions related to earthquake relief
efforts”.
The earthquakeThe 7.8 magnitude temblor, striking in the early hours of February
6, has now become Turkey’s deadliest earthquake since 1939, when more than
30,000 people were killed, and among the deadliest worldwide in decades.
A powerful aftershock of magnitude 7.5 followed the earthquake,
and experts warn that more could follow — posing potential risks to the
structural integrity of unstable structures in the earthquake zone.
Turkey’s two main fault zones, the East Anatolian and the North
Anatolian, make it one of the most seismically active regions in the world, and
more than 70 quakes of magnitude 6.5 or higher have been recorded in the region
since 1900.
The epicenter of the earthquake was near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, where around half a million Syrian refugees were living, and much of
the city was left in ruins. Much of Antakya, the capital of Turkey’s Hatay
province — known as Antioch to the people of ancient Greece and Rome — is
destroyed, with whole neighborhoods in ruins, including the oldest part of the
city. Rebuilding cities, where possible, will take years, at least a decade,
experts say.
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