GAZIANTEP, Turkey (AP) — Outstretched rescue teams worked overnight in Turkey and Syria, pulling more bodies from the rubble of thousands of buildings toppled by a catastrophic earthquake. The death toll rose to more than 9,400 on Wednesday, making the quake the deadliest in more than a decade.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said the country’s death toll had risen to 6,957, bringing the total to 9,487, including deaths reported in neighboring Syria, after Monday’s earthquake and multiple aftershocks.
The death toll in government-held areas of Syria has risen to 1,250, with 2,054 wounded, according to the Health Ministry. At least 1,280 people have died in the rebel-held northwest, according to volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets, with more than 2,600 injured.
This surpassed the 8,800 deaths in a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal in 2015.
Amid calls for the government to send more aid to the disaster zone, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was due to travel to the city of Pazarcik, the epicenter of the quake, and the worst-hit Hatay province on Wednesday.
Turkey now has around 60,000 aid workers in the quake-hit area, but with the devastation so great, many are still waiting for help.
Kamran Jebreili via Associated Press
Nearly two days after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, rescuers pulled a 3-year-old boy, Arif Kaan, from the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Kahramanmaras, a town near the epicenter. .
With the boy’s lower body trapped under concrete slabs and twisted armor, emergency crews covered his torso with a blanket to protect him from the sub-zero temperatures as they carefully cut away the debris, aware of the possibility of triggering another collapse .
The boy’s father, Ertugrul Kisi, who had been rescued earlier, wept as his son was freed and put into an ambulance.
“For now, the name of hope in Kahramanmaras is Arif Kaan,” proclaimed a Turkish television reporter as the dramatic rescue was broadcast across the country.
A few hours later, rescuers pulled 10-year-old Betul Edis from the rubble of her home in the town of Adiyaman. To cheers from onlookers, her grandfather kissed her and spoke softly to her as she was loaded into an ambulance.
But these stories come just over two days after Monday’s pre-dawn quake struck a huge swath and collapsed thousands of buildings, with freezing temperatures and constant aftershocks complicating relief efforts.
Search teams from more than two dozen countries joined Turkish emergency personnel and promises of help poured in.
Kamran Jebreili via Associated Press
But as the devastation spread to more towns and cities – some cut off by Syria’s ongoing conflict – the voices crying out from the piles of rubble fell silent and desperation grew among those still waiting for help.
In Syria, the earthquake collapsed thousands of buildings and piled up other debris in a region devastated by the country’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis.
In a town in northwest Syria, residents found a crying baby girl still connected by her umbilical cord to her dead mother on Monday afternoon. The boy was the only member of his family to survive the collapse of a building in the small town of Jinderis, relatives told The Associated Press.
Ghaith Alsayed via Associated Press
Turkey hosts millions of war refugees. The affected area of Syria is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, where millions of people depend on humanitarian aid.
Up to 23 million people could be affected in the quake-hit region, according to Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergency official at the World Health Organization, who called it “crisis after multiple crises”.
Many survivors in Turkey were forced to sleep in cars, outdoors or in government shelters.
“We don’t have a tent, we don’t have a stove, we don’t have anything. Our boys are sick. We are all getting wet in the rain and our children are outside in the cold,” Aysan Kurt, 27, told the AP. “We didn’t die of hunger or the earthquake, but we will die of the cold.”
Erdogan said 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected and declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the rubble in Turkey and about 380,000 have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, authorities said.
In Syria, aid has been hampered by the ongoing war and the isolation of the rebel-held region along the border, surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Syria itself is an international pariah under Western sanctions related to the war.
The United Nations said it was “exploring all avenues” for supplies in the rebel-held northwest.
In addition to the thousands of deaths in Turkey, another 37,011 were injured.
The region lies above major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. About 18,000 people died in similarly powerful earthquakes that struck northwestern Turkey in 1999.
Alsayed reported from Bab al-Hawa, Syria. Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. David Rising in Bangkok and Robert Badendieck in Istanbul contributed to this story.
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