Death toll in the Turkey-Syria earthquake tops 8,700, marking “A Race Against Time”
Earthquake in Turkey and Syria: According to authorities and medical personnel, 5,894 people have perished in Turkey and 2,470 in Syria, bringing the overall death toll to 8,364.
In a race against time to uncover survivors under buildings destroyed by an earthquake that claimed more than 8,700 lives, rescuers in Turkey and Syria faced extreme cold on Tuesday.
People were forced to burn debris in the streets to attempt to remain warm as international help started to arrive as tremors caused extra hardship in a border region that was already beset by strife.
However, some miraculous survival stories have come to light, such as the one of a newborn infant who was rescued alive from the wreckage in Syria while still connected to her deceased mother by the umbilical cord.
A relative, Khalil al-Suwadi, told media, “We heard a voice while we were excavating.” “We cleaned the area of debris and discovered the infant with the umbilical cord still attached. We cut it, and my cousin brought her to the hospital.”
The newborn is the only member of her immediate family to have survived; everyone else was wiped out in the rebel-held town of Jindayris.
As people slept on Monday, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck, destroying thousands of buildings, trapping an undetermined number of people, and potentially having an effect on millions of people.
Near the epicentre of the earthquake, between the Turkish cities of Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras, entire rows of buildings fell, causing some of the worst destruction.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, declared a three-month state of emergency in ten provinces in the southeast on Tuesday as a result of the destruction.
According to the sources Children are ‘freezing,’
The United States, China, and the Gulf States are among the dozens of countries that have given their support, and rescue teams and relief supplies have already started to arrive by air.
However, several of the hardest-hit districts’ residents claimed they felt abandoned and left to fend for themselves.
“My brother is in the ruins and I can’t get him back. My nephew is not retrievable. Explore the area. God forbid, there isn’t a state representative here “in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, stated Ali Sagiroglu.
“We have not seen the local area for the past two days. The cold has children shivering, “he said
A winter storm has made several roads, some of which were already damaged by the earthquake, nearly unusable, adding to the agony and causing traffic bottlenecks in some areas that last for kilometres.
Both survivors buried under debris and those displaced from their homes who sought shelter in mosques, schools, or even bus shelters are at peril from the bitter cold rain and snow.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, declared that “time is of the essence.”
To help the injured and most vulnerable people, he continued, “We have mobilised the WHO network of emergency medical teams.”
23 million people may be impacted.
The most recent death toll was 7,306 fatalities overall, including 5,434 deaths in Turkey and at least 1,872 in Syria.
With up to 20,000 possible fatalities, according to WHO officials, there are worries that the death toll will continue to grow.
The big earthquake might affect up to 23 million people, according to the WHO, which encouraged nations to provide aid to the disaster area immediately.
As President Bashar al-regime Assad’s continues to be shunned in the West, hindering international relief efforts, the Syrian Red Crescent pleaded with Western nations to waive sanctions and offer aid.
On Monday, Washington and the European Commission claimed that the humanitarian initiatives they backed were in response to the devastation in Syria.
UNESCO, the cultural arm of the UN, also declared that it was prepared to help after two sites in Turkey and Syria that are part of its World Heritage List were damaged.
At least three further World Heritage sites may be impacted, according to UNESCO, in addition to the harm done to Aleppo’s ancient city and the citadel in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir in the southeast.
A large portion of the northern Syrian region that was affected by the earthquake has already been devastated by years of war and aircraft bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces that have destroyed homes, hospitals, and clinics.
Searching for survivors was done by locals in the earthquake-devastated village of Jandairis in northern Syria using only their bare hands and pickaxes.
Hearing their voices
“My sons, daughter, and son-in-law, as well as the rest of my family, are down there. There is no one else to save them “Ali Battal, whose face was covered in blood and whose head was wrapped in a wool blanket to protect it from the icy air, stated.
“Their voices are audible. I’m aware they’re still alive, but nobody is available to save them “the 60-year-old man was added.
The Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, and Tartus provinces where Russia is renting a naval facility all had damage, according to the Syrian health ministry.
Buildings in Aleppo, Syria’s pre-war commercial centre, frequently fell because of the deteriorating infrastructure even before the catastrophe.
Following the earthquake, inmates in a jail in northwest Syria housing mainly members of the Islamic State group revolted, leading to at least 20 of them escaping, a source at the facility told media.
One of the earthquake hotspots in the globe is in Turkey.
33,000 people perished in the eastern region of Erzincan after the nation’s previous 7.8-magnitude earthquake in 1939.
In 1999, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the Turkish area of Duzce, killing almost 17,000 people.
Istanbul, a 16 million-person megalopolis with flimsy housing, has long been warned by experts that a powerful earthquake may destroy it.