Rescuers toiled through the night and into the morning in harsh winter conditions to dig people trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings as the death toll from Monday’s earthquake that shook Turkiye and Syria kept on climbing to surpass 5000 by Tuesday morning.
The earthquake, which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, is stated to be the deadliest in a century that has struck Turkiye. The scale of the disaster is unimaginable.
According to Turkish authorities, the tremor affected over 13.5 million people in an area spanning roughly 450 km from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east, and 300 km from Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south. In Syria, which is already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after over a decade-long civil war, rescue and aid workers witnessed terrifying scenes. Syrian authorities report deaths and destruction as far south as Hama, 100 kilometers from the epicentre.
Pakistan and various other countries rushed rescue workers and aid to Turkiye. A 51-member Pakistani rescue team left Islamabad for Turkiye and was set to touchdown in Istanbul, federal minister Saad Rafiq said on Twitter.
As overwhelmed rescuers struggled through the bad weather searching for survivors, the people kept on waiting in the hope that relatives and friends might be recovered alive.
“It’s now a race against time” is how the World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the scale of the disaster, fearing the death toll could reach up to 20,000. Every minute, every hour that passes diminishes the chances of finding survivors alive, says the WHO chief.
As makeshift camps and shelters have sprung up across the two countries, relatives, friends, neighbours and mosques have opened their doors to those who lost their abodes to the disaster.
Indescribable scenes were reported by the media as those trapped under the rubble kept on calling out for help through the night. “When we were running barefoot, we kept seeing buildings fall and people crying, with bodies and blood everywhere. Now we are literally homeless.”
“They’re saying, ‘Save us’ but we can’t save them. How are we going to save them? There has been nobody since the morning,” says an overwhelmed bystander clinging to the hope to see his near and dear ones alive.
Turkiye’s disaster and emergency authority has released a figure that 5,775 buildings have been destroyed in the earthquake. Nearly 300 aftershocks jolted the region after the quake.
Time is running out to save hundreds of families trapped under the rubble of buildings and urgent help is needed from international groups to rescue and rehabilitate the millions of people rendered homeless in the two countries.
