Death toll from Turkey-Syria earthquake exceeds 11,000
Rescue workers dug through the night into Wednesday morning to reach survivors trapped under the rubble of the devastating earthquake that rocked southern Turkey and war-torn northern Syria two days ago.
The combined death toll in the two countries rose to more than 9,500 as the morning progressed, with expectations that the grim figure would cross 11,000 before daybreak, making the quake the deadliest in more than a decade.
Earlier, the 2011 earthquake in Japan caused a tsunami, in which about 20,000 people died.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to visit the city of Pajarsik, the epicenter of the earthquake, and the worst-hit Hatay province on Wednesday, the AP reports.
Rescue workers carry 8-year-old survivor Yigit Kakmak to the site of a collapsed building, 52 hours after the earthquake struck Hatay, Turkey on February 08, 2023. (Burak Kara / Getty Images)
Turkey now has around 60,000 aid workers in the quake-hit area, but with the devastation so widespread, many people are still waiting for help.
Search teams from more than two dozen countries joined Turkey’s emergency workers and aid pledges poured in as the death toll continued to rise daily.
Searches continue in Turkey, Syria as earthquake death toll passes 5,000 https://t.co/m7C2ihfiKW
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 7, 2023
At least 23 million people in the quake-hit region could be affected, according to Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergency official at the World Health Organisation, who called it “a crisis on top of many crises”.
The AP reports that many survivors in Turkey have had to sleep in cars, outside or in government shelters.
“We don’t have a tent, we don’t have a heating stove, we don’t have anything. The condition of our children is bad. We are all getting wet in the rain and our children are out in the cold,” 27-year-old Aisen Kurt told the news service.
“We will not die of hunger or earthquake, we will die of freezing cold.”
Personnel and civilians conduct a search and rescue operation in Aleppo, Syria, following a magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquake that struck several provinces of Turkey on February 08, 2023. As a result of the earthquake, at least 2,530 people lost their lives in different parts of Syria, more than 4,645 were injured. (Bekir Kasim/Andolu Agency via Getty Images)
A dog is rescued 55 hours after the 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes that struck Hatey, Turkey on February 07, 2023. (Anadolu Agency via Oguz Yeter/Getty)
Erdogan said 13 million of the country’s 85 million people had been affected, and declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces.
Officials said more than 8,000 people had been evacuated from the rubble in Turkey and some 380,000 had taken shelter in government shelters or hotels.
Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent Or e-mail: [email protected]
.