A UN official said on Tuesday that there is only seven days to rescue people buried under the rubble of buildings that collapsed after the earthquakes that hit Syria and Turkey.
“This estimate is the result of numerous rescues around the world, although there can always be exceptions and victims can hold out a little longer”said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), making an initial assessment of the tragedy caused by the earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday.
To save the victims, the UN has mobilized disaster assessment teams and also search and rescue teams, made up of the best specialists in the world in these tasks, who are already moving to Turkey, according to OCHA.
In addition, twelve teams from different countries arrived in this country on Monday and another 27 are expected between this Tuesday and Wednesday.
“The big challenge now is access by land [para estas equipas e os seus equipamentos]as many roads in the region have been destroyed by the earthquakes”said Laerke.
Another difficulty is the lack of vehicles to transport the international experts. However, local authorities are already mobilizing trucks from other provinces in Turkey to remedy this situation.
At the same time, this Tuesday, the Turkish president declared a state of emergency for three months in the 10 southeastern provinces affected by the earthquake.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a series of emergency measures will be taken to flood affected areas with aid workers and financial aid.
“We have decided to declare a state of emergency to ensure that our work (of rescue and recovery) can be carried out quickly. We will quickly complete the presidential and parliamentary processes related to this decision, which will cover our 10 provinces where the earthquake took place. felt and lasts for three months”, said Erdoğan.
Erdogan’s government has come under increasing pressure on social media, where critics say the response to Turkey’s biggest earthquake in nearly a century has been slow.
How Erdogan handles the biggest natural disaster in his two decades of rule could be crucial ahead of May 14 parliamentary and presidential elections.
The first earthquake struck at 4:17 a.m. (1:17 a.m. in Lisbon), 33 kilometers from the provincial capital of Gaziantep, in southeastern Turkey and close to Syria’s northern border, at a depth of 17.9 kilometers.
The balance of the authorities so far points to more than 5,000 deaths in both countries.
Source: DN
