Turkiye-Syria quake death toll passes 7,800

ANTAKYA: The death toll of a devastating earthquake in southern Turkey and Syria jumped to more than 7,800 people on Tuesday as rescuers worked against time in harsh winter conditions to dig survivors out of the rubble of collapsed buildings.

As the scale of the disaster became ever more apparent, the death toll looked likely to rise considerably. One U.N. official said thousands of children may have died.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. But residents in several damaged Turkish cities voiced anger and despair at what they said was a slow and inadequate response from the authorities to the deadliest earthquake to hit Turkey since 1999.

“There is not even a single person here. We are under the snow, without a home, without anything,” said Murat Alinak, whose home in Malatya had collapsed and whose relatives are missing. “What shall I do, where can I go?”

Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, followed hours later by a second one almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, injured tens of thousands, and left countless people homeless in Turkey and northern Syria.

Rescue workers struggled to reach some of the worst-hit areas, held back by destroyed roads, poor weather and a lack of resources and heavy equipment. Some areas were without fuel and electricity.

With little immediate help at hand, residents picked through rubble sometimes without even basic tools in a desperate hunt for survivors.

Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria, already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of civil war.

Erdogan declared 10 Turkish provinces a disaster zone and imposed a state of emergency for three months that will permit the government to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms.

The government will open up hotels in the tourism hub of Antalya to temporarily house people impacted by the quakes, said Erdogan, who faces a national election in three months’ time.

The death toll in Turkey rose to 5,894, Vice President Fuat Oktay said. More than 34,000 were injured. In Syria, the toll was at least 1,932, according to the government and a rescue service in the insurgent-held northwest.

‘TERRIFYING SCENE’

Syrian refugees in northwest Syria and in Turkey were among the most vulnerable people affected, Elder said.

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 opened their doors to families whose homes were damaged.

The Syrian state news agency SANA said at least 812 people were killed in the government-held provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, Idlib and Tartous.

At least 1,120 people were killed in Syria’s opposition-held northwest with the toll expected to “rise dramatically”, the White Helmets rescue team said.

“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.

A U.N. 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,” U.N. resident coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih told Reuters from Damascus.

In Malatya, Turkey, locals with no specialist equipment or even gloves tried to pick through the wreckage of homes crumpled by the force of the earthquake.

“My in-laws’ grandchildren are there. We have been here for two days. We are devastated,” said Sabiha Alinak.

“Where is the state? We are begging them. Let us do it, we can rescue them. We can do it with our means.”