Turkey: Search for survivors in its final hours

ADIYAMAN, Turkey (AP) — The search for survivors of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria entered its final hours Monday, as rescue teams, aided by sniffer dogs and thermal imaging cameras, inspect buildings pulverized for any signs of life a week after the disaster.

Teams in Hatay province in southern Turkey cheered and cheered as a 13-year-old boy, identified only by name Kaan, was pulled from the rubble. In Gaziantep province, rescuers, including miners who shored up tunnels with wooden stakes, found a woman alive in the rubble of a five-storey building.

While tales of miraculous rescues have multiplied in recent days, tens of thousands of dead have been found during the same period. Experts said the possibility of finding people alive has all but disappeared, given the time that has passed, the fact that temperatures have dropped to about 6 degrees Celsius below zero (21 ° Fahrenheit) and the severity of the landslides. .

The 7.8-magnitude quake and its aftershocks struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, reducing large swaths of towns and villages to mountains of shattered concrete and twisted metal. The death toll has passed 35,000.

In some areas, rescuers posted signs reading “its yok” or “no sound” in front of buildings they had inspected for any signs that someone was alive inside, HaberTurk TV reported. .

Associated Press reporters in Adiyaman saw a sign painted on a concrete block in front of a pile of rubble saying it had already been inspected by an expert. In Antioquía, some people left signs with their phone numbers and asked rescue teams to contact them if they found bodies in the rubble.

The financial damage in Turkey alone amounts to $84.1 billion, according to the Confederation of Turkish Business, a business organization not affiliated with the government. The figure was calculated using a statistical comparison with the 1999 earthquake that hit northwest Turkey. This is a much higher amount than any official calculation so far.

In other developments, the Syrian president has agreed to open two new border crossing points between Turkey and his country’s rebel-held northwest to bring in desperately needed aid and supplies. need of the millions of victims of the earthquake, announced the UN. .

UN Secretary General António Guterres has welcomed Syrian President Bashar Assad’s decision to open the border crossing points at Bab Al-Salam and Al Raee for an initial period of three months. The UN has currently only been allowed to deliver aid to Idlib in the northeast through a single crossing point at Bab Al-Hawa.

About 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the epicenter, almost no houses were left standing in the Turkish town of Polat, where residents were salvaging fridges, washing machines and other items from destroyed homes.

Not enough tents have arrived for homeless people, forcing families to share available tents, said survivor Zehra Kurukafa.

“We sleep in the mud, all together with two, three or even four families,” he said.

Turkish authorities said on Monday that more than 150,000 survivors had been moved to shelters set up outside the affected provinces. In the town of Adiyaman, Musa Bozkurt was waiting for a vehicle that would take him and others to western Turkey.

“We are leaving, but we have no idea what will happen once there,” said the 25-year-old. “We don’t have a goal. Even if there was (a plan), what good would it be after this? I don’t have my father or my uncle anymore. What do I have left?

Fuat Ekinci, a 55-year-old farmer, was reluctant to leave his home for western Turkey, saying he couldn’t afford to live anywhere else and his fields needed tending.

“Those who can afford leave, but we are poor,” he said. “The government says, ‘Go and live there for a month or two.’ How do I leave my home? My fields are here, this is my home, how did you leave it behind?

Volunteers from different parts of Turkey have stepped up to help millions of survivors, including a group of chefs and restaurateurs who served traditional dishes such as beans, rice and lentil soup to survivors who made the line up in the streets of downtown Adiyaman. .

Widespread damage included historic sites in places like Antioch, also known as Antakya, on Turkey’s southern coast. Greek Orthodox churches in the region have launched charity campaigns to help with relief efforts and raise funds to rebuild or repair churches.

In Syria, authorities said a newborn baby whose mother gave birth to him while he was trapped under the rubble of her home was doing well. The baby, named Aya, was found a few hours after the earthquake, still connected by the umbilical cord to his deceased mother. She is breastfed by the wife of the director of the hospital where she is being treated.

Stories like this have given hope to many, but Eduardo Reinoso Angulo, a professor at the Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the chances of finding people alive are slim.

David Alexander, professor of emergency planning and management at University College London, agrees.

Many of the buildings were so poorly constructed that they crumbled into very small pieces, leaving very few spaces large enough for people to survive, Alexander said.

“If any building collapses, we usually find open spaces in a pile of rubble that we can get into,” Alexander said. “Looking at some of these photos from Turkey and Syria, there’s just no space.”

The winter conditions also greatly reduced the chances of survival. In the cold, the body shivers to stay warm, but it burns a lot of calories, which means people who are also deprived of food will die faster, explained Dr. Stephanie Lareau, professor of emergency medicine at Virginia. Tech.

Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the massive devastation, and authorities have begun prosecuting contractors believed to be linked to the collapsed buildings. Turkey has introduced building codes that meet earthquake engineering standards, but experts say they are rarely enforced.

As the scale of the disaster became known, sadness and disbelief turned to anger at the feeling that the emergency response was ineffective. That anger could be a political problem for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces an uphill battle for re-election in May.

Turkey’s death toll has passed 31,000, with the health minister noting that more than 19,000 people are being treated in hospitals. Deaths in Syria, split between rebel-held and government-held areas, topped 3,500, although the government has not provided an update for days.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths met Assad and the Syrian Foreign Minister on Monday after visiting Aleppo and seeing the devastating damage In the region.

He pointed out that the United Nations does not have heavy equipment for excavation or search and rescue work, so “the international community as a whole must step in to bring this assistance where it is needed”.

In addition, UN humanitarian partners need ambulances, medicine, shelter, heaters, food, water and sanitation and hygiene items, Dujarric said.

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Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey, and El Deeb from Adana, Turkey. Journalists Bernat Armangue in Antioch, Tanya Titova in Malatya, Turkey, and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia contributed to this report.