Three people were found alive among the rubble in Turkey’s Hatay province on Saturday, 13 days after earthquakes in Turkey and Syria left more than 40,000 dead, according to a new balance sheet released by Turkish authorities. However, one of them, aged 12, eventually died, AFP reports.
The state-run Anadolu news agency has released footage of rescuers placing a man and woman on stretchers after the two and a child had been buried for 296 hours in Antakya. The agency later reported that the child died despite efforts to save her.
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca shared a video of the 40-year-old woman in a field hospital. “She is conscious,” he wrote.
HATAY”DAN 296″INCI SAAT HABERİ
Enkaz altından 296″ incı saatte, yeni kurtarılan 40 yaslarındaki depremzede kadın hastamızın bilinci açık. Sahra Hastanemizde ilk tıbbi müdahalesi yapılıyor. pic.twitter.com/Cp4GLJO1UX– Dr. Fahrettin Koca (@drfahrettinkoca) February 18, 2023
These rescues came after crews pulled a 45-year-old man from the rubble on Friday, hours after others found three survivors, including a 14-year-old boy.
Turkish officials this Saturday raised the death toll from earthquakes recorded on Feb. 6 in the south of the country, close to the border with Syria, to about 40,000, a country where nearly 4,000 people have already died, according to official data.
Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said 39,672 deaths have been confirmed so far in the ten provinces hit by the quakes, also leaving more than 13 million people homeless.
Suleyman Soylu reiterated that the priority remains search and rescue, although the time elapsed since the earthquakes reduces the likelihood of survivors still being found among the rubble of thousands of collapsed buildings.
Soylu stressed that more than 264,000 workers are deployed on the ground, including search and rescue, health workers and agents, noting that aircraft, helicopters and ships have been assigned to provide assistance.
For his part, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar stressed that calls for “unity and solidarity” should be made at this time.
“We will do everything we can to heal these wounds,” he said, quoted by Turkey’s state news agency Anatolia.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay also denied that search and rescue efforts had stopped, citing that more than 374,000 people had already been evacuated from the affected regions, including nearly 1,600 unaccompanied children. However, he said more than 950 “have already been reunited with their families”.
Turkey’s death toll should add 1,414 deaths in government-controlled areas of Syria and 2,274 deaths in rebel-held areas, according to data from the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the “White Helmets.”
World Health Organization (WHO) regional emergency director Rick Brennan said in Damascus last week that the organization estimates there have been at least 9,300 deaths in Syria — about 4,800 in authorities-controlled areas and 4,500 in insurgent-held areas — , although he qualified that there is currently no way to create a custom projection.
The earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, measuring 7.7 and 7.6 on the Richter scale respectively, occurred on February 6 and the official death toll in both countries is around 44,000, a figure that is expected to continue to rise.
Source: DN
