International rescue teams have travelled to both countries to assist in the search for survivors. The World Health Organization estimates that the death toll could exceed 20,000 in the following days.
More than 11,000 people have perished as a result of deadly earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria.
The first 7.8 magnitude earthquake occurred before sunrise on Monday, when most people would have been asleep.
International rescue teams have travelled to both countries to assist in the search for survivors.
In the next days, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the death toll might reach as high as 20,000.
Wednesday, according to Turkey’s disaster management office, the country’s death toll surpassed 8,500. According to the Syrian Health Ministry, the death toll in government-held areas has surpassed 1,200, while at least 1,400 people have perished in the rebel-held northwest, as reported by the White Helmets.
This pushed the total since Monday’s earthquake and many powerful aftershocks to 11,000. Additional tens of thousands are hurt.
It is the deadliest disaster since an earthquake in Japan in 2011 generated a tsunami that killed over 20,000 people.
According to Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergency officer with the World Health Organization. “Crisis atop many crises” could affect 23 million people in the earthquake-ravaged region.”
Turkey and Syria’s deadliest earthquake
Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit the village of Pazarcik, the epicentre of the earthquake. And the province of Hatay, which suffered the most damage.
His visit coincides with calls for the administration to deliver additional aid to the stricken area.
There are over 60,000 aid workers in Turkey’s earthquake-affected region. But the devastation is so widespread that many people are still waiting for assistance.
13 million of the country’s 85 million inhabitants have been affected, according to President Erdogan, who has proclaimed a state of emergency in ten districts.
More than 8,000 people have been rescued from the rubble in Turkey, and some 380,000 have sought safety in government shelters or hotels, according to the authorities.
Nearly two days after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake slammed southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, Arif Kaan, 3, was rescued from the ruins of a fallen apartment building in Kahramanmaras, a nearby city.
With the boy’s lower body entombed between slabs of concrete and twisted rebar, emergency personnel place a blanket over his torso to protect him from subfreezing conditions as they gently remove the debris, aware of the potential of triggering another collapse.
Ertugrul Kisi, the boy’s father, who had been rescued earlier, wept as his son was freed and carried into an ambulance.
“For now, the name of hope in Kahramanmaras is Arif Kaan,” said a Turkish television reporter as the dramatic rescue was beamed across the nation.
A few hours later, rescuers extracted Betul Edis, age 10, from the ruins of her home in the Turkish city of Adiyaman.
Her grandfather kissed and whispered to her as she was loaded into an ambulance amid applause from bystanders.
On Monday afternoon, inhabitants of a town in northern Syria discovered a wailing infant still attached to her mother by the umbilical chord.
Relatives told the Associated Press that only the infant survived a Jinderis building collapse.
More than two days after Monday’s pre-dawn earthquake, which struck a vast area and pulled down thousands of structures. However, such reports were scarce, as freezing weather and continuous tremors complicated rescue attempts.
In Turkey, many survivors have been forced to sleep in their cars, outside, or in government-run shelters.
Aysan Kurt, age 27, stated, “We do not have a tent, a heating stove, or anything else. Our youngsters are in poor condition. The rain is soaking us all, and our children are left out in the cold.
We did not perish from starvation or the earthquake, but we will perish from hypothermia.
Search teams from over a dozen nations have joined the Turkish emergency forces, and assistance donations have flooded in.
But when devastation spread throughout a number of cities and villages — some of which were cut off by Syria’s ongoing civil war — voices wailing from within heaps of rubble ceased, and despair rose among those still waiting for aid.
Aid attempts in Syria have been impeded by the ongoing conflict and the border territory held by rebels’ isolation.
The territory is surrounded by government forces supported by Russia.
The United Nations stated that it was “exploring all options” to transport supplies to the northwest region held by rebels.
Syria is a worldwide pariah due to war-related Western sanctions. The area is frequently rocked by earthquakes due to its location on major fault lines.
