Death toll in Turkey alone is now more than 17,000 following Monday’s earthquake
Death toll rises to more than 21,000
The death toll from Monday’s earthquake on both sides of the border in Turkey and Syria is now more than 21,000.
Officials and medics said 17,674 people had died in Turkey and 3,377 in Syria from Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 21,051, Agency France Presse reports.
It comes after the White Helmets said on Twitter, that at least 2,030 people have been killed with more than 2,950 injured. Earlier on Thursday the death toll in the rebel-held area was 1,900.
Associated Press has this heart-rending dispatch about the situation facing orphaned Syrian babies and children whose parents were killed in the earthquake:
A Syrian baby girl whose mother gave birth to her while trapped under the rubble of their home during this week’s devastating earthquake now has a name: Aya, Arabic for “a sign from God.” With her parents and all her siblings killed, her great-uncle will take her in.
Aya is one of untold numbers of orphans left by Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake, which killed more than 20,000 people in northern Syria and southeastern Turkey. The pre-dawn quake brought down thousands of apartment buildings on residents as they were roused from sleep, so entire families often perished.
In most cases, relatives take in orphaned children, doctors and experts say. But those surviving relatives are also dealing with the wreckage of their own lives and families. In the continued chaos days after the quake, with the dead and a dwindling number of survivors still being found, doctors say it’s impossible to say how many children lost their parents.
At one hospital in north-west Syria, a red-haired 7-year-old girl, Jana al-Abdo, asked repeatedly where her parents were after she was brought in, said Dr Khalil Alsfouk, who was treating her. “We later found out she was the only one who survived among her entire family,” he said.
In the case of the newborn Aya, her father’s uncle, Salah al-Badran, will take her in once she is released from the hospital.
But his own house was also destroyed in the north-west Syrian town of Jindires. He and his family managed to escape the one-story building, but now the household of 11 people are living in a tent, he told the Associated Press.
“After the earthquake, there’s no one able to live in his house or building. Only 10% of the buildings here are safe to live in and the rest are unlivable,” he said, communicating via voice messages.
Rescue workers in Jindires discovered Aya on Monday afternoon, more than 10 hours after the quake hit, as they were digging through the wreckage of the five-story apartment building where her parents lived.
Buried under the concrete, the baby was still connected by her umbilical cord to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was dead, along with her husband and four other children. The baby was rushed to a hospital in the nearby town of Afrin.
Abu Hadiya probably gave birth to the girl and then died a few hours before they were discovered, said Dr Hani Maarouf at Cihan hospital in Afrin.
“We named her Aya, so we could stop calling her a new-born baby,” said Maarouf. Her condition is improving by the day and there was no damage to her spine, as initially feared, he said.
The UN children’s agency, Unicef, said it has been monitoring children whose parents are missing or killed, providing food, clothes and medicine and coordinating with hospitals to track down extended family members who might be able to care for them.
In Turkey, the ministry of family and social services appealed to potential foster families to submit applications. It said children whose families or relatives could not be found were currently being taken care of in state institutions. Staff were assessing their needs and placing them with registered foster families, the ministry said.
Updated at 21.28 GMT
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has spoken to Turkey’s finance minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, about how the US can provide assistance in Turkey and Syria.
US state department spokesperson Ned Price said the US would continue to demand unhindered humanitarian access to Syria and urged Bashar al-Assad’s government to immediately allow aid through all border crossings.
“This was primarily an effort to garner from our Turkish allies what they would like to see from the United States,” Price told reporters, adding that the US expects it will have more to say on aid to Turkey soon.
Çavuşoğlu gave specifics about Turkey’s needs, Price said, according to Reuters. He added that Washington “will do everything we possibly can to fulfil the needs that the Turks have put forward”.
Price said US helicopters were helping rescue personnel reach difficult-to-access areas and said Washington was pre-positioning relief equipment it hoped would join the recovery efforts.
The US is providing a disaster assistance response team of about 200 people, including two urban search and rescue teams.
Paramedics, emergency responders, hazardous material technicians and others had already arrived, Price said.
Washington is also sending concrete breakers, generators, medical supplies, tents, water and water purification systems, he added.
Our reporter Ruth Michaelson has written this from Istanbul, on how the perceived slow response by Turkey has affected the standing of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan:
The gleaming black sedan wound through the epicentre of Turkey’s deadly earthquake in the town of Pazarcık.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s car glistened in the sunlight as the Turkish president passed citizens burning fires to keep warm in the freezing cold among towering piles of rubble that were once their homes.
Erdoğan limited his interactions with the public in Pazarcık, instead driving directly to the local police headquarters to discuss the aftermath of the multiple massive tremors that left a trail of destruction over 10 Turkish provinces and across northern Syria, trapping people underneath collapsed buildings and killing more than 20,000.
When he did stop to speak briefly to the area’s shattered and distraught residents, it was to double down on the notion that the quake was solely responsible for the devastation, rather than poorly constructed buildings linked to corruption, or a rescue response beset by delays.
“What happens, happens, this is part of fate’s plan,” he told one person in Pazarcık, echoing his statements just months earlier after a deadly mining disaster at a state-run coalmine, where the president blamed “fate’s design”, for an explosion that left at least 41 dead.
During a speech in nearby Kahramanmaraş, Erdoğan also lashed out at “provocateurs” who criticised rescue efforts, adding: “Of course, there are shortcomings. The conditions are clear to see. It’s not possible to be ready for a disaster like this.”
Read more:
‘What happens, happens’: how Erdoğan’s earthquake response tarnished his brandRead more
Updated at 21.31 GMT
World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is on his way to Syria, where the WHO is part of the response.
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World Bank to provide $1.78bn to Turkey for recovery effort
The World Bank announced it will provide Turkey with $1.78bn (£1.47bn) in aid to Turkey to help relief and recovery efforts.
The body’s president David Malpass said: “We are providing immediate assistance and preparing a rapid assessment of the urgent and massive needs on the ground.
“This will identify priority areas for the country’s recovery and reconstruction as we prepare operations to support those needs.”
It comes as Agency France Presse reported on Thursday that the US will provide $85m (£70.1m) in aid for Turkey and Syria.
Immediate assistance of $780m (£643m) will be offered via Contingent Emergency Response Components from two existing projects in Turkey, said the bank.
“The assistance will be used for rebuilding basic infrastructure at the municipal level,” it added.
The death toll has risen again in north-west Syria, as the country’s civil defence group – the White Helmets – said that more than 2,000 people have now died in the region.
On Twitter, they said that at least 2,030 people have been killed with more than 2,950 injured. Earlier on Thursday the death toll in the rebel-held area was 1,900.
The number of people killed overall topped 20,000 earlier on Thursday, after updated totals from Turkey’s disaster and emergency body.
Updated at 20.22 GMT
Greece has set aside a historic rivalry to send thousands of tents, beds and blankets to help those left homeless by the earthquake.
The government in Athens plans to provide 80 tonnes of assistance such as blankets, beds, tents and medical supplies, its civil protection ministry said. Commercial flights carrying boxes with part of the aid landed at the Turkish airport of Adana early on Thursday, with the operation expected to conclude by Friday, according to Reuters.
“We have brought medicines, medical supplies and essentials to relieve a bit the pain of quake-afflicted people,” said the Greek civil protection minister, Christos Stylianides, who escorted the aid to Adana. “It’s time we all show our feelings of humanism.”
Greece and Turkey have been at odds for decades over a range of issues, from territorial rights in the Aegean Sea to ethnically-split Cyprus and migration, and tensions had rekindled recently.
However the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, called Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Monday to offer his condolences over the lives lost.
Updated at 20.05 GMT
More than 20,000 people confirmed to have died in earthquake
The death toll from the earthquake has now risen above 20,000, after Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency body published its latest update on the amount of people who have died.
AFAD said the death toll in Turkey is now 17,134, Reuters reports.
It would make an increase from the total announced by Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday afternoon, which stood at 16,546.
State media in Syria said the death toll in government-held areas had risen to 1,347, up from 1,262.
Earlier, the White Helmets civil defence group said 1,930 had been reported dead in rebel-held areas in the north-west of the country. It brings the overall total to 20,411.
Experts have said the casualty figures are expected to continue to rise in the coming days.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has visited a donation centre in central London set up by students from University College London’s Turkish society.
He helped pack items, as well as donating hats, scarves and blankets. The items will be sent to Turkey and Syria in the next few days.
Updated at 17.55 GMT
Summary
Rachel Hall
It’s now 8pm in Turkey and Syria. Here’s the summary of the key developments from the afternoon and early evening:
- The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria from Monday’s devastating earthquake rose to at least 19,823, after Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced that 16,546 had died, while state media in Syria reported that the death toll in government-held areas had risen to 1,347. Earlier, the White Helmets civil defence group said 1,930 had been reported dead in rebel-held areas in the north-west of the country.
- At least 28,044 people have been evacuated from Kahramanmaraş, one of the southern Turkish provinces hardest hit by Monday’s earthquake, including 23,437 by air and 4,607 by road and rail, Turkey’s disaster management agency said.
- Rescuers continued to pull people who have been trapped for days out of the rubble, including a young girl trapped for three days.
- Turkey announced that it had received pledges of aid from 95 countries and 16 international organisations since Monday, and 6,479 rescue workers from 56 countries were already active in the 10 provinces affected by the quake, with teams from 19 more countries set to be in place within 24 hours.
- France announced €12m in emergency post-earthquake aid to Syrians, with the aid to be disbursed “through non-governmental organisations and the UN in all regions affected”, while Germany said it would increase humanitarian assistance in Syria by €26m.
- Turkey’s disaster management agency, AHAD, said it has recorded almost 650 aftershocks since two earthquakes – 7.8 and 7.6 in magnitude – struck, making rescue efforts even more difficult and dangerous as emergency teams comb through severely weakened buildings.
- A Reuters report shed light on how hundreds of thousands of people made homeless by the quake are being housed in banks of tents erected in stadiums and shattered city centres, while Mediterranean and Aegean beach resorts outside the quake zone are opening up hotel rooms for evacuees.
- The UN will dispatch its aid chief, Martin Griffiths, to Gaziantep, in Turkey, and Aleppo and Damascus, in Syria, this weekend to assess how the UN can best step up support, according to UN secretary-general, António Guterres, who also urged the Syrian government to allow aid-access to the country’s rebel-held north-west.
If you would like to donate in support of the rescue effort, lots of charities are desperately seeking extra funds to provide urgently needed medical and humanitarian assistance in Turkey and Syria. You can find out how to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee – coordinating the response on behalf of 14 UK charities – here, or another list of charities accepting donations is here.
Thanks for following the blog. I’m handing over to my colleague Harry Taylor who will keep you updated for the next few hours.
Updated at 17.21 GMT
Ukrainian rescue experts involved in the war effort are bringing their skills to the devastation in Turkey to search flattened buildings for survivors, erect tents and offer first aid.
Reuters reports:
Oleksandr Khorunzhyi, a spokesperson for the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, said:
There is a war in our country, but we understand that we have to help, and this aid is mutual. There is no other way to do it.
This work goes on constantly, we have prepared people who take part in such operations.
Kyiv has sent 88 people to Turkey to help with the disaster, including specialists in search and rescue operations, doctors, dog handlers and firefighters.
The Ukrainian team built tents near the Turkish city of Antakya close to the Syrian border to provide emergency shelter and set up generators for those left homeless by the earthquake.
Updated at 17.34 GMT
Reuters has a devastating report shedding light on the tragedy that is unfolding in north-west Syria:
Rescuers working by torchlight pulled three-year-old Tariq Haidar from the rubble 42 hours after a devastating earthquake destroyed his family home in the Syrian town of Jandaris.
Orphaned by the earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey in the dead of night on Monday, Haidar was brought to a hospital where doctors were forced to amputate his left leg. They are trying to save his right.
Malek Qasida, a nurse caring for him, said:
As soon as he woke up, and saw us in front of him, he asked: ‘Where is Miral?’. We asked: ‘Who is Miral?’. He said: ‘My sister, she was sleeping next to me but she wasn’t answering me’.
They pulled out his father and two of his siblings before him, dead.
There are hundreds of children still under the rubble.
The bodies of his mother and a third sibling were recovered from the rubble later, people in the area said. His removal from the wreckage was the latest in a series of eye-catching rescues caught on camera in the areas in Syria and Turkey hit by the earthquake.
Jandaris was severely damaged by the quake, which has killed at least 1,930 people in rebel-held north-west Syria, according to rescue workers. The Syrian government says the toll in its part of the fractured country is 1,347.
The Syrian civil defence, the rescue service in the north-west, said on Thursday many families remained under the rubble.
