Emergency teams usually race against time. “It is now a race against time,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the World Health Organization. A truth from La Palice that is especially acute in Turkey and Syria, where survivors trapped in the rubble of Monday’s earthquakes are in many cases exposed to freezing temperatures.
Despite the international mobilization, the arrival of rescue groups and humanitarian aid depends on the state of the infrastructure on the ground, as is the case with the road that connects the only open border crossing between Syria and Turkey. And with the Turkish authorities unable to respond to reach all cities, those close to the disappeared are desperately trying to save the buried with their hands. In northwestern Syria, hospitals are so saturated that they no longer admit the injured.
According to Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there is seven days to save people buried alive. The estimate is based on data from rescue operations around the world, although specific circumstances may close the window sooner, as it does. The cold poses an increased risk to people forced to leave their homes, or who are afraid to return to those who have remained standing, after taking refuge in tents, cars, mosques, schools or stadiums, and especially for survivors buried under the rubble.
To make matters worse, a storm made many roads – some already damaged by earthquakes – almost impassable, resulting in miles-long traffic jams in some regions.
The supply of clean water is another priority, as Ann Avril, Director General of UNICEF in France, told France 24, noting that this poses a “logistical challenge”. For Turkish President Recep Erdogan, the situation is so serious that he declared a state of emergency in the ten provinces hit by the earthquakes for three months.
To make matters worse, a storm made many roads — some already damaged by earthquakes — nearly impassable.
International solidarity continued to add up to millions in humanitarian aid and more announcements of the sending of specialist teams and field hospitals. For example, the Spanish government, after sending two planes with specialized teams, will send two naval ships with doctors, nurses and 500 sailors, as well as helicopters, to create floating hospitals.
The disaster also had the power to make countries or leaders seemingly turn their backs on each other. Saudi Arabia announced “an airlift” to help the Turkish and Syrian populations. Riyadh supported the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and maintained cool relations with Erdogan in the wake of the assassination of Jamal Kashoggi at the Istanbul consulate. Egypt, through President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, offered support to Assad in a phone call, the first since Sisi came to power in 2014, with the Syrian. The former marshal also spoke with the Turkish leader, with whom he also maintains a distant relationship.
Even more surprising was the Armenian government’s announcement that it would send rescue teams to Turkey (and Syria). Yerevan and Ankara have no diplomatic ties, given Turkey’s refusal to recognize the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire.
For those subject to negative temperatures, without access to basic goods and with buried family and friends, political games are of no interest. “Where is the state? I can’t get my brother out of the ruins. I can’t reach my cousin. Look around you. There’s no state official here for God’s sake,” an exasperated Ali Sagiroglu shouted to the AFP report in Kahramanmaras, where eight apartment buildings over 10 stories collapsed in the city center alone.
Hours later, firefighters managed to get a four-year-old girl out of that city alive.
In Syria, in Jandaris, a newborn, still with the umbilical cord connecting him to his mother, who did not survive, was rescued alive from the rubble of a five-story building.
Source: DN
