ANTAKYA, Turkey — Rescuers struggled to dig people out of the rubble of collapsed buildings on Tuesday in a “race against time” as the death toll from an earthquake across a wide area of Turkey and Syria passed 5,000.
The magnitude 7.8 quake – the deadliest in Turkey since 1999 – hit early on Monday and was followed by a second hours later. The epicenter was 23 km east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province. A series of aftershocks have been recorded.
President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared as a disaster zone the 10 provinces affected by the devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.
Erdogan said 70 countries had offered help in search and rescue operations and that Turkey planned to open up hotels in the tourism hub of Antalya, to the west, to temporarily house people impacted by the quakes.
He said the death toll in Turkey had risen to 3,549 people.
Thousands of buildings were toppled, hospitals and schools wrecked, and tens of thousands of people were injured or left homeless in several Turkish and Syrian cities.
A UN official said thousands of children may be among the dead.
Harsh winter weather hampered search efforts and the delivery of aid and made the plight of the homeless even more miserable. Some areas were without fuel and electricity.
Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria, already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of civil war.
In Turkey, the death toll had climbed to 3,419 people by Tuesday morning, Vice President Fuat Oktay said. In Syria, the death toll stood at just over 1,600, according to the government and a rescue service in the insurgent-held northwest.
Turkish authorities say some 13.5 million people were affected 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. Syrian authorities have reported deaths as far south as Hama, some 100 km from the epicenter.
“It’s now a race against time,” World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. “Every minute, every hour that passes, the chances of finding survivors alive diminishes.”
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said 5,775 buildings had been destroyed in the quake, which was followed by 285 aftershocks, and that 20,426 people had been injured.
In Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters: “The earthquakes … may have killed thousands of children.”
Across the region, rescuers toiled through the night and into the morning searching for survivors as people waited in anguish by mounds of rubble, clinging to the hope that friends and relatives might be found alive.
In the Turkish city of Antakya, capital of Hatay province near the Syrian border, a woman’s voice was heard calling for help under a pile of rubble.
Reuters journalists saw the body of a small child lying lifeless nearby.
Weeping in the rain, a resident who gave his name as Deniz wrung his hands in despair.
“They’re making noises but nobody is coming,” he said. “We’re devastated, we’re devastated. My God… They’re calling out. 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.”
Families slept in cars lined up in the streets.
Ayla, standing by a pile of rubble where an eight-storey building once stood, said she had driven to Hatay from Gaziantep on Monday in search of her mother. Five or six rescuers from the Istanbul fire department were working in the ruins.
“There have been no survivors yet. A street dog came and barked at a certain point for long, I feared it was for my mother. But it was someone else,” she said.
‘TERRIFYING SCENE’
Tedros said the WHO was especially concerned about areas of Turkey and Syria, where no information had emerged since the quake struck.
In the Syrian city of Hama, Abdallah al Dahan said funerals for several families were taking place on Tuesday.
“It’s a terrifying scene in every sense,” said Dahan, contacted by phone. “In my whole life I haven’t seen anything like this, despite everything that has happened to us.”
Mosques had opened their doors to families whose homes were damaged.
The death toll in Syrian government-held areas rose to 812, the state news agency SANA reported. In the rebel-held northwest, the toll was more than 790, according to the Syrian civil defense, a rescue service known as the White Helmets and famous for digging people from the rubble of government air strikes.
“There are lot of efforts by our teams, but they are unable to respond to the catastrophe and the large number of collapsed buildings,” group head Raed al-Saleh said.
HARSH WEATHER
Time was running out to save hundreds of families trapped under the rubble of buildings and urgent help was needed from international groups, he said.
A UN humanitarian official in Syria said fuel shortages and the harsh weather were creating obstacles.
“The infrastructure is damaged, the roads that we used to use for humanitarian work are damaged, we have to be creative in how to get to the people,” UN resident coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih told Reuters from Damascus.
The earthquake was the biggest recorded worldwide by the US Geological Survey since one in the remote South Atlantic in August 2021.
Poor internet connections and damaged roads between some of the worst-hit Turkish cities, homes to millions of people, hindered efforts to assess the impact and plan help.
With tight elections scheduled in just three months, Erdogan’s government faces a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction challenge just as he was ramping up his re-election campaign.
The economy, already strained by inflation at 58%, is expected to grow a bit less than previously expected this year, analysts say.
NO PINOY CASUALTIES
The Philippine Embassy in Ankara said no Filipino was killed or hurt in the earthquake but 248 of them were affected because many buildings were damaged, there was also no electricity supply, and it was cold and raining.
Around 4,000 Filipinos are living and working in Turkey, mostly concentrated in Istanbul and the northwest part of the country.
“The Embassy continues to reach out to the Filipino communities and its other contacts in the region, and as of this writing, has not received reports of Filipino casualties in the provinces of Gaziantep, Hatay, Adana and Mersin,” Algabre said Ambassador Maria Elena Algabre.
The earthquake hit the southeast region of Turkey, 23 km east of Nurdagi Gaziantep located along the Turkey-Syria border.
Turkish authorities said among the provinces which have sustained damage included Gaziantep, Hatay, Osmaniye, Adiyaman, Malatya, Sanhurfa, Adana, Kahramanmaras, Diyarbakir and Silis.
Algabre said the Philippine embassy is ready to assist Filipinos affected by the earthquake and it may be reached via landline and WhatsApp at 905345772344 and email at ankara.pe@dfa.gov.ph.
In Syria, 60 Filipinos in Syria were affected by the earthquake, according to the the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The 60 were from Aleppo (27), Latakia (19), Tartous (11) and three in Hama.
DFA spokesperson Teresita Daza said none of them were hurt.
“The Philippine Embassy in Damascus reported that leaders of the Filipino community have been contacted and they confirmed that no Filipino was injured as a result of the earthquake in regions including those that were greatly affected such as Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia,” Daza said.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo offered his condolences and said country’s embassies in Syria and Turkey are monitoring the situation and coordinating with the Filipino communities and local authorities.
PH AID TEAM
President Marcos Jr. said the Philippines will send an 85-man team to provide aid to the victims in Turkey and Syria.
The President, in an interview on the sidelines of the 2023 National Tax Campaign Kickoff in Pasay City, said he is coordinating with the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) for the deployment of the Philippine team and government’s assets, which he expects to be sent by Wednesday evening.
Marcos said Turkish airlines has committed to help fly the Philippine contingent which includes engineers and health workers, and their equipment along with aid such as blankets and winter clothes.
Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez, concurrent chairman of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, the “latest target for their departure is tomorrow (Wednesday).”
Galvez also said Turkey has been “very kind” to the Philippines as it helped in efforts to vaccinate Filipinos against COVID-19.
“Turkey is a very close ally and in this in time of need, the President immediately decided to organize engineering (and medical) teams for deployment to Turkey,” he said.
He also said the defense attaché to Turkey has been tasked to ensure the safety of the contingent. He said members of the contingent will also be provided winter clothing.
Galvez said the Philippine government is also trying to produce at least 10,000 blankets and unspecified number of winter clothes, gloves, bonnets for Turkish people affected by the quake.
The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said it is preparing to send personnel and equipment to Turkey.
The OCD said the Turkey’s embassy in Manila has requested, specifically emergency medical and urban search and rescue teams.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Singh-Vergeire deployed 31 health emergency responders from the Department of Health as part of the Philippine inter-agency contingent that will be deployed to Turkey.
The 31-man team is composed of health professionals from two DOH Hospitals, namely: Dr. Jose Natalio Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center and Jose B. Lingad Memorial General Hospital. The DOH team is composed of doctors, nurses, medical technologists, and medical professionals.
The DOH team is bringing 16 tons of medical and rescue operations equipment and will assist in the rescue operations in Turkey. — Reuters, Ashzel Hachero, Jocelyn Montemayor and Victor Reyes
