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Turkey earthquake

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A month after Turkey-Syria quake, survivors need shelter, sanitation

The Feb. 6 earthquake and strong aftershocks have killed more than 46,000 people in Turkey, destroyed or damaged around 230,000 buildings and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

ANKARA: One month after a powerful quake devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, hundreds of thousands of people still need adequate shelter and sanitation, and an appeal for $1 billion to assist survivors is only 10 per cent funded, hampering efforts to tackle the humanitarian crisis, a United Nations official said Monday.

The Feb. 6 earthquake and strong aftershocks have killed more than 46,000 people in Turkey, destroyed or damaged around 230,000 buildings and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless — making it the worst disaster in Turkey's modern history. The U.N. estimates that the earthquake killed around 6,000 people in Syria, mainly in the rebel-held northwest.

About 2 million survivors have been housed in temporary accommodation or evacuated from the earthquake-devastated region, according to Turkish government figures. Around 1.5 million people have been settled in tents while another 46,000 have been moved to container houses. Others are living in dormitories and guesthouses, the government said.

"Given the number of people that have been relocated, given the number of people that have been injured and given the level of the devastation, we do have extensive humanitarian needs now," Alvaro Rodriguez, the U.N. Resident Coordinator in Turkey, told The Associated Press.

"We have some provinces where up to 25 per cent of the population — we're talking sometimes half a million people — have relocated. So the challenge we have is how do we provide food, shelter, water for these communities?" he said.

The U.N. representative said tents are still needed even though they are not "the optimal solution" for sheltering people. He reported some cases of scabies outbreaks because of poor sanitary conditions.

Last month, the U.N. made a flash appeal for $397.6 million to help Syrian quake victims — just over half of which has come in — and a $1 billion appeal for victims in Turkey to cover emergency needs, such as food, protection, education water and shelter, for three months. Rodriguez said the appeal for Turkey is only about 10 per cent funded.

"The reality is that if we do not move beyond the roughly 10 per cent that we have, the U.N. and its partners will not be able to meet the humanitarian needs," he said.

Rodriguez added: "Turkey has been a country that has supported 4 million Syrian refugees over the last few years, and this is an opportunity for the international community to provide the support that Turkey deserves."

The World Bank has estimated that the earthquake has caused an estimated $34.2 billion in direct physical damages — the equivalent of 4 per cent of Turkey's 2021 GDP. The World Bank said recovery and reconstruction costs will be much higher and that GDP losses associated with economic disruptions will also add to the cost of the earthquakes.

In Syria, the situation remained dire one month after the deadly earthquake, with aid groups citing fears of a looming public health crisis with families still packed into overcrowded temporary shelters and crucial infrastructure damaged by the quake.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that Aleppo's water infrastructure — already ageing and damaged by the war — had been further damaged by the quake, which "reduced the system's efficiency and raised the risk that contaminated water could pollute the supply."

Water contamination is of particular concern in Syria as the country had already been battling cholera outbreaks before the earthquake.

While the quake generated an initial outpouring of aid, relief organizations cited fears that the world's attention will move on quickly, while basic humanitarian needs remain unmet. Meanwhile, political and logistical issues have in some cases blocked aid from reaching those in need.

Amnesty International said Monday that between Feb. 9 and 22, the Syrian government had "blocked at least 100 trucks carrying essential aid such as food, medical supplies and tents from entering Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods in Aleppo city" while Turkish-backed rebel groups in northwest Syria blocked at least 30 aid trucks sent by rival Kurdish groups from entering Turkish-controlled Afrin in the same period.

"Even in this moment of desperation, the Syrian government and armed opposition groups have pandered to political considerations and taken advantage of people's misery to advance their own agendas," Aya Majzoub, the rights group's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.

[newnewz]

Turkey-Syria Earthquake Toll Tops 33,000, Legal Action Against Builders

With chances of finding more survivors growing more remote, the toll in both countries from Monday's earthquake and major aftershocks rose above 33,000.

Antakya, Turkey: Rescuers pulled more survivors from the rubble on Sunday, nearly a week after one of the worst earthquakes to hit Turkey and Syria, as Turkish authorities sought to maintain order across the disaster zone and began legal action over building collapses.

With chances of finding more survivors growing more remote, the toll in both countries from Monday's earthquake and major aftershocks rose above 33,000 and looked set to keep growing. It was the deadliest quake in Turkey since 1939.

In a central district of one of the worst hit cities, Antakya in southern Turkey, business owners emptied their shops on Sunday to prevent merchandise from being stolen by looters

Residents and aid workers who came from other cities cited worsening security conditions, with widespread accounts of businesses and collapsed homes being robbed.

Facing questions over his response to the earthquake as he prepares for a national election that is expected to be the toughest of his two decades in power, President Tayyip Erdogan has said the government will deal firmly with looters.

In Syria, the disaster hit hardest in the rebel-held northwest, leaving homeless yet again many people who had already been displaced several times by a decade-old civil war. The region has received little aid compared to government-held areas.

"We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria," United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths tweeted from the Turkey-Syria border, where only a single crossing is open for U.N. aid supplies.

"They rightly feel abandoned," Griffiths said, adding that he was focused on addressing that swiftly.

Washington called on the Syrian government and all other parties in the country to immediately grant humanitarian access to all those in need.

More than six days after the first quake struck, emergency workers still found a handful of people clinging to life in the wreckage of homes that had become tombs for many thousands.

A team of Chinese rescuers and Turkish firefighters saved 54-year-old Syrian Malik Milandi after he survived 156 hours in the rubble in Antakya.

On the main road into the city the few buildings left standing had large cracks or caved-in facades. Traffic occasionally halted as rescuers called for silence to detect signs of remaining life under the ruins.

A father and daughter, a toddler and a 10-year-old girl were among other survivors pulled from the ruins of collapsed buildings Sunday, but such scenes were becoming rare as the number of dead climbed relentlessly.

At a funeral near Reyhanli, veiled women wailed and beat their chests as bodies were unloaded from lorries - some in closed wood coffins, others in uncovered coffins, and still others just wrapped in blankets.

Some residents sought to retrieve what they could from the destruction.

In Elbistan, epicentre of an aftershock almost as powerful as Monday's initial 7.8 magnitude quake, 32-year-old mobile shop owner Mustafa Bahcivan said he had come into town almost daily since then. On Sunday he sifted through the rubble searching for any of his phones that might be still be intact and sellable.

"This used to be one of the busiest streets. Now it's completely gone," he said.

DETENTION ORDERS

Building quality in a country that lies on several seismic fault lines has come into sharp focus in the aftermath of the quake.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said 131 suspects had so far been identified as responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened in the 10 affected provinces.

"We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and buildings that caused deaths and injuries," he said.

The earthquake hit as Erdogan faces presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for June. Even before the disaster, his popularity had been falling due to soaring inflation and a slumping Turkish currency.

Some affected by the quake and opposition politicians have accused the government of slow and inadequate relief efforts early on, and critics have questioned why the army, which played a key role after a 1999 earthquake, was not brought in sooner.

Erdogan has acknowledged problems, such as the challenge of delivering aid despite damaged transport links, but said the situation had been brought under control.

SYRIA AID COMPLICATED BY YEARS OF WAR

In Syria, the hostilities that have fractured the country during 12 years of civil war are now hindering relief work.

Earthquake aid from government-held regions into territory controlled by hardline opposition groups has been held up by approval issues with Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which controls much of the region, a U.N. spokesperson said.

An HTS source in Idlib told Reuters the group would not allow any shipments from government-held areas and that aid would be coming in from Turkey to the north.

The U.N. is hoping to ramp up cross-border operations by opening an additional two border points between Turkey and opposition-held Syria for aid deliveries, spokesperson Jens Laerke said.

The foreign minister of U.S. ally the United Arab Emirates met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday in the first high-level visit by an Arab official since the quake.

Several Arab countries have provided support to Assad in the quake's aftermath. Western countries, which sought to isolate Assad after his crackdown on protests in 2011 and the outbreak of civil war, are major contributors to U.N. relief efforts across Syria but have provided little direct aid to Damascus during the civil war.

The first shipment of European earthquake aid to government-held parts of Syria also arrived in Damascus on Sunday.

U.N Syria envoy Geir Pedersen said in Damascus the United Nations was mobilising funding to support Syria. "We're trying to tell everyone: Put politics aside, this is a time to unite behind a common effort to support the Syrian people," he said.

The quake ranks as the world's sixth deadliest natural disaster this century, its death toll exceeding the 31,000 from a quake in neighbouring Iran in 2003.

It has killed 29,605 people in Turkey and more than 3,500 in Syria, where tolls have not been updated for two days.

Turkey said about 80,000 people were in hospital, and more than 1 million in temporary shelters.

[internationalnewz]

Turkey-Syria quake death toll tops 21,000, rescuers race to find survivors

The first UN aid deliveries arrived on Thursday in Syrian rebel-held zones, but chances of finding survivors have dimmed since the passing of the three-day mark that experts consider a critical period to save lives.

Rescuers were scouring debris on Friday nearly 100 hours after a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing at least 21,000 people in one of the region's worst disasters for a century.

The first UN aid deliveries arrived on Thursday in Syrian rebel-held zones, but chances of finding survivors have dimmed since the passing of the three-day mark that experts consider a critical period to save lives.

Bitter cold hampered search efforts in both countries, but more than 80 hours after the disaster struck, 16-year-old Melda Adtas was found alive in the southern Turkish city of Antakya.

Her overjoyed father was in tears and the grieving nation cheered an agonisingly rare piece of good news.

"My dear, my dear!" he called out as rescuers pulled the teen out of the rubble and the watching crowd broke into applause.

The 7.8-magnitude quake struck early Monday as people slept, in a region where many had already suffered loss and displacement due to Syria's civil war.

Top aid officials were planning to visit affected areas with World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths both announcing trips.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, said she had arrived in Aleppo.

"Communities struggling after years of fierce fighting are now crippled by the earthquake," Spoljaric tweeted on Wednesday.

"As this tragic event unfolds, people's desperate plight must be addressed."

- Aid reaches rebel areas -

An aid convoy crossed the Turkish border into rebel-held northwestern Syria on Thursday, the first delivery into the area since the quake, an official at the Bab al-Hawa crossing told AFP.

The crossing is the only way UN assistance can reach civilians without going through areas controlled by Syrian government forces.

A decade of civil war and Syrian-Russian aerial bombardment had already destroyed hospitals, collapsed the economy and prompted electricity, fuel and water shortages.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council to authorise the opening of new cross-border humanitarian aid points between Turkey and Syria.

Four million people living in the rebel-held areas have had to rely on the Bab al-Hawa crossing as part of an aid operation authorised by the UN Security Council nearly a decade ago.

"This is the moment of unity, it's not a moment to politicise or to divide but it is obvious that we need massive support," Guterres said.

- Freezing temperatures -

Temperatures in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, located near the epicentre of the quake, plunged to minus three degrees Celsius (26 degrees Fahrenheit) early on Friday.

Despite the cold, thousands of families had to spend the night in cars and makeshift tents -- too scared or banned from returning to their homes.

Parents walked the streets of the city carrying their children in blankets because it was warmer than sitting in a tent.

Gyms, mosques, schools and some stores have opened at night. But beds are scarce and thousands spend the nights in cars with engines running to provide heat.

"I fear for anyone who is trapped under the rubble in this," said Melek Halici, who wrapped her two-year-old daughter in a blanket as they watched rescuers working into the night.

- 'The quiet is agonising' -

Monday's quake was the largest Turkey has seen since 1939, when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province.

Officials and medics said 17,674 people had died in Turkey and 3,377 in Syria from Monday's tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 21,051.

Experts fear the number will continue to rise sharply.

Anger has mounted over the government's handling of the disaster.

"People who didn't die from the earthquake were left to die in the cold," Hakan Tanriverdi told AFP in Adiyaman province, one of the areas hardest hit.

On a visit to the area, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted there had been "shortcomings" in the government's handling of the disaster.

Despite the difficulties, thousands of local and foreign searchers have not given up the hunt for more survivors.

In the devastated Turkish town of Nurdagi, close to the epicentre, emergency workers using drones and heat detecting monitors ordered silence when a potential survivor was found.

"The quiet is agonising. We just don't know what to expect," Emre, a local resident, said as he waited next to one block on a main road into the town.

- Relief pledges -

Dozens of nations, including China and the United States, have pledged to help.

The World Bank said it would give $1.78 billion in aid to Turkey to help relief and recovery efforts.

Immediate assistance of $780 million will be offered from two existing projects in Turkey, said the bank, while an added $1 billion in operations is being prepared to support affected people.

In addition to a staggering human toll, the quake's economic cost appears likely to exceed $2 billion and could reach $4 billion or more, Fitch Ratings said.

[sohnidhartiworld]

Turkey-Syria offensive 'not our problem' - Trump

Turkey-Syria offensive ‘not our problem’ – Trump

“It’s not our problem” if Turkey enters Syria, Donald Trump says, adding the Kurds are “no angels”. Read More

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Mig-23 crashes near Turkey-Syria border

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Mig-23 crashes near Turkey-Syria border. A Turkish official says a plane has crashed in the countryside near the Syrian border with preliminary information

[newsdock]

Tensions are running high on the Turkey-Syria border following the shooting down of a Syrian warplane by Turkish forces at the weekend, the Turkish army said Tuesday. "During one mission... five F-16 jets were followed by anti-air missiles... deployed by Syria, which were locked on our aircraft for 10 minutes, 53 seconds," it said in a statement. Local media also reported that Turkey has deployed specialist elite units on the border. Damascus accused Ankara of "flagrant aggression" after the plane was shot down and crashed on Syrian territory on Sunday as Syrian loyalists and rebels battled for control of a frontier crossing. Source: AFP