Turkey and Syria: death toll from earthquake now over 19,000

More than 19,000 dead. That is the terrifying toll of the tragedy caused by the earthquake that struck early Monday morning in the border area between Turkey and Syria. The 7.8 Richter scale quake, with more than 430 aftershocks, hit the Turkish province of Gaziantep hard and was strongly felt in a swathe between the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Hama and the Turkish enclave of Diyarbakir, more than 330 kilometres northeast of Syria, causing widespread destruction. 

The death toll caused by the succession of earthquakes since Monday in Turkey and Syria now exceeds 19,000, while more than 69,000 people have been injured, according to figures from the authorities of both countries and the White Helmets, the aid group working on rescue efforts in areas of Syria controlled by opponents of Bashar al-Assad's government. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 13 of the Ottoman country's 85 million people were affected and declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces in what is considered one of the worst natural tragedies of the century. The situation in Syria is aggravated by the civil war that has been raging since 2011 between the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the rebels based in the last opposition stronghold of Idlib.  

The conditions in the devastated areas are Dantesque and after three days are reaching limits that a human body could not withstand considering the situation of lack of food and low temperatures, a scenario in which the chances are multiplying that the number of dead will continue to increase exponentially.  

Rescue teams in Turkey and Syria continue to work against the clock. For three days and since the beginning of the earthquakes, thousands of rescuers have been working under difficult conditions due to the obstacles created by collapsed buildings, which make it difficult to reach the bodies of victims, and the freezing temperatures.  

The Turkish Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) said that some 6,500 buildings had collapsed as a result of the earthquakes, especially the main one measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale.  

"We are at a critical moment," the White Helmets warned on the social networking site Twitter. "Time is running out," they said.  

As the hours pass, tension is growing due to the requests for urgent aid from the population in the face of the scarce assistance arriving due to the difficulties of access to the affected areas or the existing political conflicts, as in the case of Syria, a country subject to international sanctions, such as those of the United States and the European Union (EU), due to the repression exercised by the regime of Bachar al-Asad against the opposition in the framework of the bloody civil war that is ravaging the nation. Although sanctioned by Brussels, Bashar al-Assad's government has made a formal request for assistance to the EU itself. 

More than 45 countries have ordered aid and rescue equipment and personnel to be sent to Turkey and Syria. Among them are nations such as the United States, Israel, Germany, Spain, etc.... 

Around 100,000 troops are working in the search and rescue efforts, including volunteers, combing the affected areas. On the Turkish side there is talk of around 65,000 injured and Recep Tayyip Erdogan said there are almost 400,000 homeless people who have had to resort to shelters, hotels, shopping centres and religious worship centres in order to protect themselves from the cold and try to access food. Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes on both sides of the border and the humanitarian drama is spreading. 

Meanwhile, in the last few hours there have been messages calling for more aid to Syria, which has been hit by the seismic tragedy and also by the drama of the 12-year civil war that has left millions of displaced refugees in the border area with Turkey, whose living conditions have worsened even further. Local officials called for heavy machinery and professional support teams as the work has been carried out with limited means by staff on the ground.  

? Imágenes de Hatay, Turquía, la región que más ha sufrido el #terremoto pic.twitter.com/BueAeNBEBA

— Atalayar (@Atalayar_) February 9, 2023

Following the appeals, large-scale aid is beginning to arrive for the Syrian territory, after the announcements on Wednesday by several Arab countries about assistance for the Middle Eastern neighbour and Russia, a major ally of Bashar al-Assad's regime in the Syrian civil war, which sent material and hundreds of soldiers to help in the work of clearing rubble and rescuing victims.  

On Thursday, a convoy of aid for earthquake victims in Syria headed for the Turkish-Syrian border, as reported by The National. Up to six trucks of aid arrived in northwestern Syria after the United Nations said it expected to make deliveries there for the first time since Monday's earthquake. The expedition reached opposition-held Syrian territory after crossing the border into Turkey at the Bab al-Hawa crossing.  

In Syria, the tremors have left around 3,100 people dead (1,900 in rebel-held areas and more than 1,200 in al-Assad-held territory) and more than 5,000 injured so far.

The UN reported that it had stopped aid passing through Turkey for logistical reasons, while Syrian opposition groups said the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey, the only UN-recognised route for aid to north-western Syria, had been reopened. Up to four million people are affected in the border region, including displaced people living in the area. Difficulties are compounded by inconveniences such as the destruction of infrastructure and snow-blocked roads.  

The Syrian opposition insisted that an agreement was reached with Turkey to open aid routes. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Ottoman country had explored the idea of opening two new border crossings to deliver aid to Syria because of problems with earthquake-affected connections. "Some European countries and Turkey have problems delivering aid to Syria because of weak infrastructure affected by the earthquakes," Cavusoglu said earlier.  

As planes carrying international aid arrived at Damascus airport, the ground was prepared for relief convoys to cross Syria's front lines in order to gain access to the northwest, as confirmed by the UN's regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, Muhannad Hadi. "We expect everyone to put the interests of the people first, we need to put politics aside," Hadi said, as reported by The National.