Volunteers continue for a fifth conse
\n Iskenderun
\nA family of six was pulled out alive after 101 hours under the rubble in Iskenderun, southern Turkey. A family was rescued from the debris of a collapsed building on Friday morning, in the Hatay region, one of the worst-hit areas in Turkey. A 17-year-old was saved in Gaziantep, 94 hours after the first of Monday\u2019s deadly earthquakes.
\nFriday morning brought glimmers of hope across a devastated landscape spanning the two sides of the Turkey-Syria border, as volunteers and workers pulled off seemingly miraculous rescues.
\nThe rare successes came even as Turkey crossed a grim milestone: Its death toll from the earthquakes reached 18,991, surpassing the number of people lost to the powerful 1999 temblor that had shaken and scarred the nation. In total, Monday\u2019s two earthquakes of magnitudes 7.8 and 7.6, and hundreds of other powerful aftershocks, have killed more than 22,000 people and turned entire neighbourhoods into debris in southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria.
\nThe grim figure keeps rising as rescue workers continue their frantic search operations for a fifth consecutive day amid freezing temperatures and damaged infrastructure.
\n\u201cRescuers are on the way with heavy machinery still hoping to reach some of them \u2013 dead or alive,\u201d said Al Jazeera correspondent Resul Serdar, reporting from a site of collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras, the closest city to the epicentre of the first earthquake. \u201cBut they are getting a bit desperate here and tensions are really high,\u201d he said.
\nIt is a prolonged tragedy for those who survived \u2014 but they do not know whether their loved ones will. \u201cMy dears are burning under the rubble,\u201d a Kahramanmaras resident told Al Jazeera, holding back tears.
\nTurkey\u2019s disaster-management agency said more than 110,000 personnel were taking part in the rescue effort with the assistance of more than 5,500 vehicles, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers and excavators.
\nHowever, criticism against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s government over the lack of a quick response to the tragedy is mounting.
\n\u201cWhy haven\u2019t we learned anything? Why haven\u2019t the authorities assessed the structures well enough? Why did authorities allow such weak structures?\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s Sinem Koseoglu said, citing people\u2019s doubts.
\nTurkey sits on major fault lines and cities have been repeatedly devastated by deadly earthquakes, including a major one with a 7.4 magnitude in the western city of Izmit in 1999 when more than 17,500 people died.
\nOn Wednesday, Erdogan defended his government\u2019s preparations for and response to the earthquakes during a visit to the disaster zone, saying it was \u201cimpossible for anyone to prepare for the scale of the disaster\u201d.
\nHe went on to say that the state will rebuild all collapsed buildings in all 10 provinces affected by the earthquake within a year.
\nExperts argue though that while the strength, location and rapid succession of the earthquakes would pose a risk to any buildings, non-compulsory government reforms have left many buildings vulnerable.
\n\u201cOn paper, Turkey\u2019s seismic design code is up to global standards \u2013 it is actually better than most,\u201d Sinan Turkkan, civil engineer and president of Turkey\u2019s Earthquake Retrofit Association, told Al Jazeera. \u201cIn practice, however, the situation is very different.\u201d
\nMeanwhile, 14 aid trucks crossed into northwestern Syria from Turkey, the United Nations said. A first UN convoy had passed through the Bab al-Hawa crossing point on Thursday.
\nIn the opposition-controlled areas of Syria, rescuers are working with their bare hands and some equipment to dig into rubble. The White Helmets, a voluntary organisation in the rebel-held region officially known as Syria Civil Defence, criticised the UN saying its shipment was not tailored to the disaster as it contained regular aid.
\n\u201cWe still have hundreds of families trapped under the rubble, including 16 of my own cousins with their wives and children,\u201d a volunteer in Idlib told Al Jazeera. \u201cWe can see the body of our beloved once under the ruins but we can\u2019t do anything to collect them,\u201d he added.
\nThe situation in Syria\u2019s government-controlled area is also problematic for those who survived.
\nSpeaking to Al Jazeera, Safir Salim of the Middle East Council of Churches says the situation is worsening for people made homeless in the Syrian city of Aleppo. He said after the earthquake, more people had to leave their homes after they were deemed unsafe.
\n\u201cThe situation now has started to be worse than yesterday. The engineers come to check the buildings and discover hundreds of buildings cannot be saved,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cSo they asked people to empty everything from the building quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we are suffering for the future and what we will do now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Volunteers continue for a fifth conse Iskenderun A family of six was pulled out alive after 101 hours under the rubble in Iskenderun, southern Turkey. A family was rescued from the debris of a collapsed building on Friday morning, in the Hatay region, one of the worst-hit areas in Turkey. A 17-year-old was saved in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-312975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n