After the earthquake in Turkey, aid focuses on the homeless and the destitute

By Suhaib Salem and Ali Kucukgocmen

KAHRAMANMARAS/ANTIOCH, Turkey, Feb 17 (Reuters) – International aid agencies are stepping up efforts to help millions of homeless people, many sleeping in tents, mosques, schools or cars, eleven days later after a strong earthquake shook Turkey. and Syria with more than 43,000 dead.

Two people were reportedly pulled alive from the rubble in Turkey on Thursday, but such rescues are becoming less common, with rage lingering as hopes fade.

A 17-year-old girl was pulled from the ruins of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras province in southeastern Turkey, TV channel TRT Haber reported, 248 hours after the magnitude 7 quake hit. 8 hit the country in the middle of the night on February 6.

Footage showed her being carried away on a stretcher covered in a thermal blanket while a rescue worker attached an IV drip to her.

Around 10 hours later, Neslihan Kilic was rescued.

“We had prepared his grave and asked the rescue teams to stop digging as we feared they would damage the bodies left under the rubble. Moments later his voice was heard under the ruins of the ‘building,” Kilic’s brother said. -law told Turkish network CNN.

Kilic’s husband and two children are still missing.

The quake has killed at least 38,044 people in southern Turkey, authorities said on Friday, while authorities in neighboring Syria reported 5,800 dead, a figure that has barely changed in days.

The United Nations on Thursday appealed for more than $1 billion in funds for the Turkish aid operation, just two days after it appealed for $400 million for the Syrians.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in his first televised remarks since the earthquake, said responding to the disaster required more resources than the government had.

Neither Turkey nor Syria have indicated how many people are still missing.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, who visited Turkey last week, said people had “experienced indescribable anguish”, adding: “We must be with them in their darkest hour and make sure they get the support they need.”

For families still waiting to get their loved ones back, outrage is growing over what they see as corrupt building practices and deeply flawed development that has caused the dissolution of thousands of homes and businesses.

“Tengo dos hijas. No tengo más. Las dos están bajo estos escombros”, dijo Sevil Karaabduloglu, mientras las excavadoras derribaban lo quedaba de un bloc de pisos de lujo en la ciudad de Antioquía, en el sur de Turquía, donde vivían sus two girls.

Some 650 people are thought to have died when the Renaissance residence collapsed.

“We rent this place as an elite place, a safe place. How do I know that the contractor built it like that?” Karaabduloglu said. “Everyone is looking to make a profit. Everyone is guilty.”

Some 200 km away, around 100 people gathered in a small cemetery in the town of Pazarcik to bury a family of four – Ismail and Selin Yavuzatmaca and their two young daughters – who died in the Renaissance building.

Turkey has pledged to investigate anyone suspected of being responsible for the buildings’ collapse and has ordered the arrest of more than 100 suspects, including property managers.

BORDER PASSES

Across the Syrian border, the earthquake devastated a region divided and devastated by 12 years of civil war.

The Syrian government says the death toll in territory it controls is 1,414. In the rebel-held northwest, more than 4,000 people have been killed, but rescue teams say no one has been killed. has been found alive since February 9.

Relief efforts have been hampered by the conflict. Many North West residents feel abandoned as supplies are almost always directed to other parts of the large disaster area.

Deliveries from Turkey were completely halted immediately after the earthquake, when a road used by the United Nations was temporarily blocked. This week, Assad authorized two more crossings.

As of Thursday, 119 UN trucks had passed the Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam crossings since the quake, a spokesman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Reuters.

Many survivors fled the disaster areas, but some decided to stay, despite the dire conditions.

“We spend our days with bread, soup and meals as part of the aid sent by the people. We have no more life. We are afraid,” says Mustafa Akan, from Adiyaman, who sleeps outside and defends itself from the cold by burning wood in a Cube.

(Reporting by Suhaib Salem and Ali Kucukgocmen; Additional reporting by Henriette Chacar, Ezgi Erkoyun, Timour Azhari, Firas Makdesi, Khalil Ashawi, Hamuda Hassan, Abir Al Ahmar, Jonathan Spicer and Michelle Nichols; Writing by Tom Perry, Crispian Balmer, Rosalba O’ Brien and Stephen Coates; Edited in Spanish by Flora Gómez)