In the race against time, 182 hours after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that shook Turkey and Syria, rescuers rescued Kaan, a 12-year-old boy, in Turkey’s Hatay province yesterday. Four hours earlier, it was Miray, another child, who had been rescued alive from the wreckage of Adiyaman. A tunnel had to be built in Kahramanmaras to free three generations of the same family: grandmother, mother and daughter. Success stories in the midst of tragedy. Officially, the death toll stands at 35,224 (31,643 in Turkey alone), but the United Nations believes the final number will be much higher. In Syria, the death toll has not been updated for several days.
A week after the first quake, which was followed by an almost equally strong aftershock, hopes are fading and attention is turning to help – whether food, shelter or psychological support – for survivors. These face the lack of water and poor sanitation conditions that will cause other diseases. In Adiyaman, there is already an outbreak of scabies (a skin disease) affecting adults, while children suffer from diarrhoea, according to local media quoted by AFP.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said 108,000 buildings were destroyed in the quake-hit area, with 1.2 million people taking shelter in student housing and 400,000 forced to leave the hardest-hit region.
According to government figures, the recovery could cost $50 billion – a figure that one group of businessmen says is far from realistic, pointing to $84.1 billion. Of this, 70.8 billion will be needed to repair houses, 10.4 billion will be due to lost income and 2.9 billion to lost working days.
About 13.4 million people (15% of the country’s population) live in the ten affected provinces, which account for 10% of Turkey’s GDP. It is estimated that earthquakes could mean the loss of two percentage points of economic growth this year – government forecasts before the tragedy were for 5.5% growth.
Support for Syria
The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors yesterday to discuss how to send humanitarian aid to Syria. In a civil war spanning more than a decade, Bashar Al-Assad’s regime remains a pariah in the West, making it difficult to send support. Most of the affected region is controlled by rebels rather than Damascus, making it even harder to get help.
Yesterday, the Syrian leader received UN emergency coordinator Martin Griffiths. According to a Presidency press release, Assad “emphasized the importance of international efforts aimed at helping rebuild infrastructure in Syria.” The regime claims its financial problems are due to the sanctions imposed after the outbreak of the conflict in 2011, which began with the brutal suppression of peaceful protests and escalated into a war involving the major powers and jihadist groups.
with authorities
Source: DN
