ISLAMABAD, Feb 9 (News Agencies /APP Web Desk): The death toll from the Turkiye-Syria earthquakes has climbed above 19,000 as rescuers race to save survivors trapped under debris in freezing weather.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the death toll in his country from Monday’s deadly earthquake had now reached 16,170, bringing the total fatilities in Turkiye and Syria to 19,362, The Guardian reported on Thursday.
State officials in Syria said earlier on Thursday that death-toll at government controlled areas stood at 1262, while 1930 had been reported dead at rebel held areas.
Experts have said the toll of both dead and injured is expected to continue to rise sharply in the coming days.
The Syrian Civil Defence group continued search operations through the night in rebel-held parts of Syria as the rescue effort crossed the 72-hour mark that disaster experts consider the most likely period to save lives.
“We are racing against time. Every minute counts,” tweeted the opposition group, who are also known as the White Helmets.
The group said hundreds of people remain trapped in the rubble in the town of Jandires in the province of Aleppo.
Access to Twitter in Turkey has been restored, the Netblocks internet observatory has said.
“The restoration comes after authorities held meeting with Twitter to ‘remind Twitter of its obligations on content takedowns and disinformation’,” Netblocks said.
The Turkish president has admitted to problems with his government’s initial response to the devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey, amid anger from those left destitute and frustrated over the slow arrival of rescue teams, Al Jazeera reported.
“Of course, there are shortcomings,” Erdogan said during a visit to the city of Kahramanmaras, one of the hardest hit spots.
“The conditions are clear to see. It’s not possible to be ready for a disaster like this.”
Temperatures in the quake-stricken Turkish city of Gaziantep plunged to minus five degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) early on Thursday but thousands of families spent the night in cars and makeshift tents, too afraid to return to their homes – or banned from doing so.
Parents walked the streets of the city carrying children in blankets because it was warmer than sitting in a tent.
“When we sit down, it is painful, and I fear for anyone who is trapped under the rubble in this,” said Melek Halici, who had wrapped her two-year-old daughter in a blanket as they watched rescuers working late into the night. “Eventually, we will have to go to the tent but I don’t want to,” she told the AFP news agency. “I can’t bear the cold but nor can I think about going back to our apartment.”
Reuters has this heartbreaking story from Turkey’s Hatay, where the agency’s photographer Umit Bektas witnessed rescuers trying to pull Abdulalim Muaini out from the rubble of his home.
Abdulalim’s legs were trapped under a large slab of concrete but he was conscious and able to talk to his rescuers.
Close beside him lay his wife, Esra. But the rescue had come too late for her.
The magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday are classified as “major” on the Richter scale.
But what does it mean? How do earthquakes happen and how are they measured?
