Among rubble, hundreds of thousands of homeless people face cold and hunger as authorities in Turkey and Syria tackle dire humanitarian disaster
\n KAHRAMANMARAS
\nAmong the rubble, hundreds of thousands of homeless people face cold and hunger as authorities in Turkey and Syria tackle the dire humanitarian disaster caused by the earthquake that has left more than 35,000 dead.
\nAs hopes of finding people alive under the debris fade more than a week after the quake struck, the focus has switched to providing food and shelter to the vast numbers of survivors.
\nAccording to the Turkish government, about 1.2 million people have been housed in student residences, more than 206,000 tents have been erected and 400,000 victims evacuated from the devastated areas.
\nThe disaster has also exacted a psychological toll. In a tent city near the quake\u2019s epicentre in Kahramanmaras, father-of-four Serkan Tatoglu, 41, described how his family was haunted by their losses as they waited out the aftershocks.
\n\u201cThe youngest, traumatised by the aftershocks, keeps asking: Dad, are we going to die?\u2019\u201d Tatoglu said of his six-year-old.
\nTurkey\u2019s Vice President Fuat Oktay said 574 children pulled from collapsed buildings were found without any surviving parents.
\nOnly 76 had been returned to other family members.
\nOne voluntary psychologist working in a children\u2019s support centre in hard-hit Hatay province said numerous parents were frantically looking for missing kids.
\n\u201cWe receive a barrage of calls about missing children,\u201d Hatice Goz said by phone.
\n\u201cBut if the child still cannot speak, the family is unable to find them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Millions need to be fed\u2019
\nIn the devastated Turkish city of Antakya, clean-up teams have been shifting rubble and putting up basic toilets as the telephone network started to come back in parts of the town, an AFP reporter said.
\nThe city was patrolled by police and soldiers deployed to prevent looting following several incidents over the weekend.
\n\u201cSend any stuff you can because there are millions of people here and they all need to be fed,\u201d Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu appealed late Sunday.
\nIn Antakya and Kahramanmaras, food and other aid supplies were flowing in, AFP teams reported.
\nThe economic cost of the disaster could be as much as $84.1 billion, with nearly $71 billion of that for housing, Turkish employers\u2019 association Turkonfed said in a report Monday.
\nNeighbouring Syria, already racked by 12 years of civil war, is of particular concern.
\nThe United Nations held an emergency meeting Monday on how to boost aid to rebel-held areas, as anger grows over a sluggish international response to the pariah nation.
\nSyrian President Bashar al-Assad, isolated and subject to Western sanctions, called for international assistance to help rebuild infrastructure in the country, where the UN estimates more than five million have been left homeless.
\nUN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Assad has agreed to open two more border crossings from Turkey to northwest Syria to allow in aid.
\nBefore the earthquake struck, almost all of the crucial humanitarian aid for the more than four million people living in rebel-controlled areas of northwest Syria was being delivered through just one crossing.
\n\u201cOpening these crossing points \u2014 along with facilitating humanitarian access, accelerating visa approvals and easing travel between hubs — will allow more aid to go in, faster,\u201d Guterres said.<\/p>\n
Aid for Syria
\nMore than a week after the 7.8-magnitude quake toppled buildings across the region, stories continue to emerge of people found alive in the rubble.
\nBut experts warned that hopes of finding more survivors were dimming.
\nIn Turkey on Monday, siblings Harun, eight, and Eyuphan, 15, were rescued 181 hours after the fifth-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century, the Anadolu news agency reported.
\nA Mexican military rescue dog named Proteo died searching for survivors under the rubble in Turkey.
\n\u201cYou accomplished your mission… thank you for your heroic work,\u201d the Mexican military tweeted Monday.
\nThe confirmed death toll stands at 35,331 as officials and medics said 31,643 people had died in Turkey and at least 3,688 in Syria.
\nThe toll has barely changed in Syria for several days and is expected to rise.
\nTrucks carrying shelter kits crossed from Turkey into northwest Syria on Monday.
\nHowever, UN officials said more was needed for the millions whose homes were destroyed.
\nOn Monday, Sudan sent a flight carrying 30 tonnes of aid to Syria.
\nAccording to Syrian Transport Ministry official Suleiman Khalil, 62 planes carrying aid have so far landed in Syria and more are expected in the coming days, particularly from Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Among rubble, hundreds of thousands of homeless people face cold and hunger as authorities in Turkey and Syria tackle dire humanitarian disaster KAHRAMANMARAS Among the rubble, hundreds of thousands of homeless people face cold and hunger as authorities in Turkey and Syria tackle the dire humanitarian disaster caused by the earthquake that has left more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-313773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n