Czech USAR team during the post-earthquake response in the Turkish city of Adiyaman, February 10, 2023.
Ankara – Even four days after the catastrophic earthquake, rescuers in Turkey are discovering survivors under the rubble of collapsed houses. In the port city of Iskenderun, according to the AP agency, it was possible to find six relatives who survived more than 100 hours in the rubble. Overall, however, the death toll from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria continues to rise and has already exceeded 21,700. Syrian President Bashar Assad visited the affected areas in Syria for the first time.
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Photo gallery: Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
In Turkey's Kahramanmaraş province, a mother and daughter were rescued after 92 hours of earthquakes, according to Anadolu Agency. Earlier, a five-year-old girl, Mina, was pulled from the rubble in the same area. “I'm so happy we found her,” said one of the rescuers. In Hatay province, two-year-old Fatima was rescued 88 hours after the earthquake, two hours later a ten-year-old boy and his mother were rescued, and seven-year-old Asya was rescued 95 hours after the earthquake.
This morning in Diyarbakir province, rescue workers found a mother and her son, who even survived 100 hours in the rubble. An hour later, six relatives were found in a collapsed house in Iskenderun, helped by huddling together in the small space left in the rubble. In the morning in the city of Adiyaman, two survivors and the Czech rescuers working there were rescued from the collapsed houses.
There are few stories with a good ending so long after the earthquake. On the other hand, the number of victims in persistent freezing temperatures continues to rise. According to the Turkish Agency for Disaster and Emergency Management (AFAD), there are 18,342 of them. Turkish authorities register 74,242 injured this morning. In neighboring Syria, where the devastating earthquake also struck, more than 3,377 people have been found dead so far. At least hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes in the entire region.
The number of victims, according to Reuters, made the earthquake the seventh deadliest natural disaster of this century. It killed more people than the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which also damaged the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Moreover, it is not excluded that the total number of victims will surpass even the earthquake from neighboring Iran, where 26,000 people died in 2003.
The disaster may also affect Turkish parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for May 14. In some affected regions, it will be very difficult to hold a vote, which will be a big challenge for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government is criticized by some residents for being slow to help. Some Turkish media, citing their sources, are writing today that the elections may be postponed to a later date.
Aid from the United Nations began to flow into the second country affected by the earthquake – Syria. But the world organization's efforts are complicated by the long-lasting civil war and the fact that the affected area is in the hands of anti-government rebels. The United States has therefore already called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to immediately allow the flow of aid through all border crossings. According to Reuters, Assad visited the affected area for the first time today when he and his wife arrived at a hospital in the city of Halab (Aleppo).
A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the Turkey-Syria border region early Monday morning, causing massive damage along with aftershocks. In Turkey alone, 6,500 buildings have collapsed and many others are damaged. The World Bank wants to provide Ankara with $1.78 billion (CZK 39 billion) in aid, of which $780 million (CZK 17 billion) will be available immediately.
Czech rescuers in Turkey rescued two people from the rubble after the earthquake living people
Czech rescuers in the Turkish city of Adiyaman this morning rescued two survivors from the rubble of houses collapsed after Monday's earthquake. The dog of the Czech cynological group, which is on the spot, helped colleagues from another team find another living woman in the wreckage. Jakub Kozák, the spokesman for the Czech fire department, told journalists. He already stated earlier that the Czech team retrieved 12 more victims of the earthquake from the collapsed houses during the night of today, making a total of 20 bodies so far, including 11 children.
Czechs continue to help other rescue teams with searching for places , where people could remain alive in the rubble. One of these aids was the assistance of a dog from Czech cynologists. “Colleagues from another team rescued a woman from the rubble at 4:00 a.m. who had been 'barked' by the dog Terezka of the Czech cynological group, with which we are conducting the search,” said Kozák, adding that the two survivors rescued from the rubble by the Czech team took local rescuers.
Members of the Czech USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) team specialized in searching for people in the rubble began searching two buildings with an area of approximately 40 by 40 meters in Adiyaman on Tuesday evening. Kozák had previously stated that one building had floors collapsed on top of itself, the other had collapsed.
“In total, we have already rescued 20 victims from the collapsed buildings, 11 of which were children. Our rapid search group with canines and marked the location with the possibility of survivors in several places with a slit camera, colleagues from other USAR teams in the area are working on the rescue,” said Kozák. The spokesman informed on Thursday about the creation of a small group helping other rescuers. According to him, teams from Algeria, Taiwan, Pakistan and Armenia also have bases in Adiyaman.
The Czech USAR team abroad helped in the past, for example, in Beirut, Lebanon in 2020 after an explosion in the port, which claimed a life two hundred people and injured another 6,000. In the Czech team at that time, together with firefighters, there were cynologists with dogs, a structural engineer and a doctor.
