Pakistan dispatches rescue team
Freezing winter weather hamper search efforts; PM Shehbaz establishes relief fund for Turkiye
islamabad
Overwhelmed rescuers struggled to save people trapped under the rubble as the death toll from a devastating earthquake in Turkiye and Syria surpassed 5,200 on Tuesday, with despair mounting and the scale of the disaster hampering relief efforts.
An official 51-member Pakistani rescue team was also set to touchdown in Istanbul today, federal minister Saad Rafiq said on Twitter. The Turkish city of Antakya near the Syrian border, where 10-storey buildings had crumbled onto the streets, Reuters journalists saw rescue work being conducted on one out of dozens of mounds of rubble.
The temperature was close to freezing as the rain came down and there was no electricity or fuel in the city. In Turkiye, the death toll climbed to 3,481 people, Turkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said.
The death toll in Syria, already devastated by more than 11 years of war, stands at more than 1,600, according to the Syrian government and a rescue service in the insurgent-held northwest.
First batch of relief items arrive in Turkiye
On Tuesday morning, the first batch of relief items from Pakistan reached Turkiye, a Pakistan Air Force spokesperson said.
“Pakistan Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft carrying members of search and rescue teams and blankets from PAF Base, Nur Khan has landed in Turkiye,” he said in a statement.
The PAF aircraft is carrying relief goods from people of Pakistan for the earthquake affected brethren of Turkiye, the spokesperson added.
Earlier, the Pakistan Army’s media wing said that two contingents; urban search and rescue team — comprising rescue experts, sniffer dogs, search equipment and a Medical team comprising army doctors, nursing staff and technicians along with 30 bedded mobile hospital, tentage, blankets — and other relief items had been dispatched to Turkiye.
