Relief and rescue teams concentrated in major Turkish cities after the earthquake, but there are a large number of small towns where aid has not yet arrived, the Spanish news agency EFE reported on Saturday.
Last Monday’s earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey, in an area larger than the area of Portugal, caused a high level of destruction, including basic infrastructure, making it difficult to distribute aid.
The Turkish daily Hurriyet reported this Saturday that many roads to rural villages in the region have been closed due to snowfall, while the poor condition of many mountain roads, which were already in place before the earthquake, makes communication difficult.
“It may be insufficient, but state and voluntary aid has reached the cities, but almost nothing has reached thousands of villages where people are struggling to survive,” emergency medicine specialist Yilmaz Kurt told EFE.
Yilmaz Kurt traveled this week to Kahramanmaras province – where the earthquakes epicenter was – and single-handedly set up a field hospital in the village of Alçiçek, from where he described the dramatic situation in many small villages.
“The greatest luxury here is a tent, which people put up with whatever they can find and put a stove in,” the doctor described, adding that the number of deaths in smaller villages could be lower because traditional structures are more resistant to earthquakes , but the situation among the survivors after the disaster is getting worse day by day due to a lack of outside support.
In many places, houses have become uninhabitable and alternatives such as tents are not sufficient, and the lack of water and food also affects the animals in these small farming villages.
“Most of the stables have collapsed. Although the authorities claim that there are no major animal losses, the lack of water and food is a major problem,” he stressed.
The earthquake affected a population of 13 million in 10 Turkish provinces, where access to water is still limited or limited, there is a lack of food and the cold also increases the risk of epidemics.
Although more than 100,000 rescuers and relief workers are working in the area, the sheer size, high degree of devastation, more than 1,000 aftershocks recorded and the cold complicate work to help earthquake victims.
Source: DN
