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The death toll from the devastating earthquake that struck the two countries earlier this week has risen to 15,383 as of Thursday, according to authorities, as rescuers race against time to find more survivors in Turkey and Syria amid harsh freezing temperatures.
According to the most recent update from Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD), the country’s overall death toll now stands at 12,391 people, with 62,914 others injured, according to Anadolu News Agency.
More than 6,000 buildings collapsed in the aftermath of Monday’s massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake, affecting more than 13 million people in the ten Turkish regions of Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, Hatay, Osmaniye, Adiyaman, Malatya, Sanliurfa, Adana, Diyarbakir, and Kilis.
According to the “White Helmets” civil defense group, there were at least 2,992 deaths in Syria, with 1,730 reported in rebel-held areas in the northwest and 1,262 fatalities reported in government-controlled areas, CNN reported.
According to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 70 countries and 14 international organizations have offered Turkey assistance since the disaster struck on Monday.
The international aid situation in Syria, on the other hand, is less clear, as the country has been heavily sanctioned as a result of the ongoing civil war.
According to CNN, the UAE, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, and India have all sent relief directly to regime-controlled airports.
Others, including Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, China, Canada, and the Vatican, have pledged assistance, though it is unclear whether that assistance will be delivered directly to the regime.
The EU has confirmed that it will send 3.5 million euros in aid to Syria in response to a government request, but the aid must be delivered to both government and rebel-controlled areas.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Syrian government said it had set up more than a hundred shelters equipped with aid supplies for those affected by the earthquake in government-controlled areas, including Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Tartus, and Latakia, a coastal city with the highest number of earthquake deaths in Syria so far, and over 100 collapsed buildings.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Erdogan, who visited the quake-affected areas on Wednesday, defended his government’s response, saying it was impossible to prepare for the scale of the disaster after critics claimed emergency services were too slow, according to the BBC.
Addressing reporters in Hatay, he accepted the government had encountered some problems, but said the situation was now “under control”.
Rescuers and volunteers are working around the clock to find those who are trapped beneath the rubble, as the survival rate without food or water drops dramatically after the 72nd hour, which is rapidly approaching, according to the Xinhua news agency.
Given the low temperatures that have swept through the earthquake-hit regions will increase the risk of hypothermia., experts have warned that the 72-hour window for rescuing those trapped by the earthquakes may be much shorter than anticipated.
The devastating 7.8 tremor struck Turkey’s southern province of Kahramanmaras at 4.17 a.m. on Monday, followed by a 6.4-magnitude tremor in Gaziantep province a few minutes later.
The 7.8-magnitude quake struck 23 kilometers east of Nurdagi in Gaziantep, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers.
At around 1.30 p.m, a third 7.5-magnitude tremor hit Kahramanmaras, which officials said was “not an aftershock”.
Source:IANS
