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Plight of homeless deepens as Turkey-Syria earthquake toll passes 17,000

Many in the disaster zone slept in their cars or in streets under blankets in freezing cold

Reuters | February 09, 2023

People sit around a fire next to rubble and damages near the site of a collapsed building in the aftermath of an earthquake, in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, February 8, 2023. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

ANTAKYA:

The plight of hundreds of thousands of people left homeless by earthquakes in Turkey and Syria grew more desperate on Thursday, while hopes faded of many more people being found alive amid the ruins of cities.

The death toll from Monday's quakes, which struck in the early morning, passed 17,000 on Thursday across both countries.

It was the biggest natural disaster to strike the region since 1999, when a similarly powerful quake killed more than 17,000 people in Turkey.

People work at the site of a collapsed building, in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake, in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, February 8, 2023. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

People look on as the search for survivors continues in the aftermath of an earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, February 8, 2023. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Rescuers carry a woman after she was evacuated from under a collapsed building following an earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, February 7, 2023. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

A Turkish official said the disaster posed "very serious difficulties" for the holding of an election scheduled for May 14 in which President Tayyip Erdogan has been expected to face the toughest challenge in his two decades in power.

With anger simmering over the slow delivery of aid and delays in getting the rescue effort underway, the disaster is bound to play into the vote should it still go ahead.

On the ground, many people in Turkey and Syria spent a third night sleeping outside or in cars in freezing winter temperatures, their homes destroyed or so shaken by the quakes they were too afraid to re-enter.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless in the middle of winter. Many have camped out in makeshift shelters in supermarket car parks, mosques, roadsides or amid the ruins, often desperate for food, water and heat.

At a gas station near the town of Kemalpasa, people picked through cardboard boxes of clothes dropped off as donations.

In the port city of Iskenderun, Reuters journalists saw people huddled round campfires on roadsides and in half-crushed garages and warehouses. The only lights were the spotlights focused on cranes trying to remove slabs of debris.

Authorities say some 6,500 buildings in Turkey collapsed and countless more were damaged in the quake zone where some 13 million people live

Sleeping by the roadside

Turkey's AFAD disaster agency set up meeting points for people left homeless and wanting to be evacuated from the area. More than 28,000 people have been brought out so far, it said.

In Maras, people camped inside a bank, taping a sheet in the window for privacy. Others had set up on the grass median of a main road, heating instant soup on fires and wrapping themselves in blankets.

A cat named Cilek (Strawberry), stuck under rubble in Turkey's Hatay following a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake, was safely pulled out by a rescue team pic.twitter.com/gDWKBDRe1q
devastated Syrian town of Jandaris, Ibrahim Khalil Menkaween walked in the rubble-strewn streets clutching a folded white body bag. He said he had lost seven members of his family including his wife and two of his brothers.

"I’m holding this bag for when they bring out my brother, and my brother’s young son, and both of their wives, so we can pack them in bags," he said. "The situation is very bad. And there is no aid."

The death toll in Turkey rose to 14,014 by Thursday morning. In Syria, already devastated by nearly 12 years of civil war, more than 3,000 people have died, according to the government and a rescue service in the rebel-held northwest.

Turkish officials say some 13.5 million people were affected in an area spanning roughly 450 km (280 miles) from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east. In Syria, people were killed as far south as Hama, 250 km from the epicentre.

Barefoot and bruised

There were still some signs of hope. Turkish footage late on Wednesday showed a few more survivors being rescued, including Abdulalim Muaini, who was pulled from his collapsed home in Hatay, where he had remained since Monday next to his dead wife.

Peering out from under a large slab of concrete and brick, Abdulalim Muaini gestures weakly at his rescuers. It has been over two days since a massive earthquake brought his home in Hatay, Turkey, down upon him. Close beside him lies his dead wife Esra https://t.co/wLkcFbupjJ pic.twitter.com/r4qldWFNqc
partitioned the country and wrecked its infrastructure. The first United Nations convoy carrying aid to northwest Syria since the quake crossed from Turkey on Thursday, witnesses and a border official said.

El-Mostafa Benlamlih, the senior U.N. aid official in Syria, said 10.9 million people had been affected by the catastrophe.

Syria's ambassador to the United Nations on Wednesday admitted the government lacked capability and equipment, blaming more than a decade of civil war and Western sanctions.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has chaired emergency meetings on the earthquake but has not addressed the nation in a speech or news conference.

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