HATAY, Turkey/DAMASCUS – The screams of people trapped under rubble filled the night early on Tuesday as desperate family members dug for survivors with shovels and their bare hands in freezing temperatures.
The death toll in Turkey and in neighbouring north-west Syria rose to more than 5,000 after a magnitude-7.8 quake rippled through both countries early on Monday, toppling entire apartment blocks, wrecking hospitals and leaving thousands of people injured or homeless.
Turkish and Syrian disaster response teams have reported that more than 5,600 buildings have been flattened across several cities, including many multi-storey apartment blocks that were filled with sleeping residents when the first quake struck.
More than 7,800 people were rescued across 10 provinces, according to Mr Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkeys disaster management authority.
At least 3,419 people have died in Turkey and 1,602 in parts of Syria, bringing the total to at least 5,021, officials and medical sources said.
With thousands of others injured, this was Turkeys deadliest earthquake since 1999, when a tremor of similar magnitude killed more than 17,000. There are fears that the toll will rise inexorably, with World Health Organisation officials estimating up to 20,000 may have died.
Freezing winter weather hampered search efforts for survivors through the night into Tuesday.
Under a pile of rubble in the southern province of Hatay, a womans voice could be heard calling for help. Nearby, the body of a small child lay lifeless.
Weeping in the rain, a local resident who gave his name as Deniz wrung his hands in despair.
Theyre making noises, but nobody is coming, he said. Were devastated, were devastated. My God Theyre calling out. Theyre saying, Save us, but we cant save them. How are we going to save them? There has been nobody since the morning.
Temperatures fell close to freezing overnight, worsening conditions for people trapped under rubble or left homeless. Your browser does not support iframes, but you can use the following link: Link In Kahramanmaras, north of Hatay, entire families gathered around fires and wrapped themselves in blankets to stay warm.
We barely made it out of the house, said Mr Neset Guler, huddled around the fire with his four children. Our situation is a disaster. We are hungry, we are thirsty. Its miserable.
The earthquake, which was followed by a series of aftershocks, was the biggest recorded worldwide by the United States Geological Survey since a tremor hit the remote South Atlantic in August 2021. Remote video URL Poor Internet connections and damaged roads between some of the worst-hit cities in Turkeys south, home to millions of people, hindered efforts to assess and address the impact.
This is a race against time and hypothermia, said Professor Mikdat Kadioglu from the meteorology and disaster management department at Istanbul Technical University. People got caught in sleepwear and have been under the rubble for 17 hours, he said. View of damaged and collapsed buildings after an earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on Feb 6, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS In Syria, the effects of the quake were compounded by the destruction caused by more than 11 years of civil war. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, preparing for a tough election in May, called the quake a historic disaster and said the authorities were doing all they could.
Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night make things more difficult, he said. He added that 45 countries had offered to help in the search and rescue efforts.
In the Turkish city of Iskenderun, rescuers climbed an enormous pile of debris that was once part of a state hospitals intensive care unit in search of survivors. Health workers did what they could to tend to the new rush of injured patients.
We have a patient who was taken into surgery but we dont know what happened, said a woman in her 30s, who wanted to be known only as Ms Tulin. She was standing outside the hospital, wiping away tears and praying. Remote video URL The initial earthquake was so large it was felt as far away as Greenland, and its aftermath sparked a global response.
Dozens of nations, from Ukraine to New Zealand, said they would send help, although freezing rain and sub-zero temperatures have slowed the response.
Officials said three major airports were inoperable, complicating deliveries of vital aid. A winter blizzard has covered major roads in ice and snow. People take shelter at state buildings after anearthquakein Diyarbakir, southeast ofTurkey, on Feb 6, 2023. PHOTO: EPA-EFE A top United Nations humanitarian official said fuel shortages were also creating obstacles to aid and rescue work.
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 but we are working hard, UN resident coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih told Reuters in an interview via video link from Damascus.
In the government-controlled city of Aleppo, footage on Twitter showed two neighbouring buildings collapsing one after the other, filling streets with billowing dust.
Two residents of the city, which has been heavily damaged in the war, said the buildings had fallen in the hours after the quake, which was felt as far away as Cyprus and Lebanon.
Mr Raed al-Saleh of the Syrian White Helmets, a rescue service in rebel-held territory known for pulling people from the ruins of buildings destroyed by air strikes, said the group was in a race against time to save the lives of those under the rubble. Relatives of the victims wait as emergency personnel carry out search andrescueoperations at the site of a collapsed building in Diyarbakir, Turkey, on Feb 6, 2023. PHOTO: EPA-EFE Prisoners mutinied in a north-western Syria prison on Monday following the earthquake, with at least 20 escaping the jail holding mostly Islamic State group members, a source at the facility told AFP.
The military police prison in the town of Rajo near the Turkish border holds about 2,000 inmates, with about 1,300 of them suspected to be Islamic State fighters, said the source.
The prison also holds fighters from Kurdish-led forces.
After the earthquake struck inmates started to mutiny and took control of parts of the prison, said the official at the Rajo jail, which is controlled by pro-Turkish factions.
About 20 prisoners fled who are believed to be Islamic State militants. Rescuers carry out a person from a collapsed building after an earthquake inMalatya, Turkey, on Feb 6, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS
The UN cultural agency, Unesco, expressed fears over heavy damage in two cities on its heritage list Aleppo in Syria and Diyarbakir in Turkey. REUTERS, AFP, NYTIMES More On This Topic Turkey, Syria quake: A look at the major deadly earthquakes in the past two decades Why was the Turkey-Syria earthquake so deadly?