A man sits on the rubble of a collapsed building in Antakya, Turkey, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023. Six days after two powerful earthquakes within hours of each other caused dozens of buildings to collapse, killing thousands of people and leaving millions homeless, rescuers were still pulling survivors from the ruins. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

ANTAKYA, Turkey (AP) — Six days after earthquakes in Syria and Turkey killed thousands, grief and disbelief are turning to anger and tension at the sense that there has been a ineffective, unjust and disproportionate response to the historical catastrophe.

Many in Turkey are frustrated that rescue operations have been extremely slow and precious time has been lost in finding people alive under the rubble.

Others, particularly in the southern province of Hatay near the Syrian border, say the Turkish government has delayed delivering aid to the hardest-hit region, allegedly for both political and religious reasons.

In Adiyaman, in southeastern Turkey, Elif Busra Ozturk was waiting for news on Saturday from her uncle and aunt, trapped under the rubble of the building where they lived. The bodies of his two cousins ​​had already been located.

“For three days I waited outside for help. Nobody came. There were so few rescue teams that they could only go where they were sure there were people alive,” he said.

At the same compound, Abdullah Tas, 66, said he slept in a car near the building where his son, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren were buried. Rescuers arrived four days after the earthquake. The Associated Press was unable to independently verify his claim.

“What good is it to people under the rubble? asked.

In the ancient city of Antakya, crowds of onlookers stood behind the police tape on Saturday to watch bulldozers scrape away a collapsing luxury building.

There were more than 1,000 people in the 12-story building when the earthquake struck, according to relatives monitoring the rescue efforts. They said there were still hundreds inside, but complained that efforts to free them were slow and sketchy.

“It’s an atrocity, I don’t know what to say,” Bediha Kanmaz, 60, said. The bodies of her son and 7-month-old grandson were already taken out of the building, still holding each other, but her daughter-in-law was still inside.

“We open the body bags to see if they are ours, we check if they are our children. We even examine the ones that are in pieces,” he said.

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Emrah Gurel contributed from Adiyaman; Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin.

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