Rescuers with a survivor pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building on February 14, 2023, after the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, which occurred more than a week ago.
Ankara – More than 8,000 people were rescued from the rubble of the earthquake that hit southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria on February 6 in Turkey in eight days. According to Anadolu Agency, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this today, who also thanked all countries for their help and sending rescue teams. Today, according to Reuters, at least six people were rescued alive. Some of them remained under the rubble for over 200 hours.
Advertisement'; }
Photo gallery: Earthquake in Turkey and Syria
Last week's earthquake claimed almost 38,000 lives, of which at least 31,974 were in Turkey and 5,800 in Syria. The new death toll in Turkey was announced today by the Disaster Management Agency (AFAD). He also stated that almost 200,000 people were evacuated from the affected areas in the south of Turkey.
Some foreign rescue workers have already returned home from Turkey, either because of safety concerns due to rising tensions in the affected areas, or because the chances of finding survivors are now slim, including due to temperatures dropping below freezing. Nevertheless, several peoplewere still alive today from the rubble in Kahramanmaraş province.
In the morning, rescuers in the province of Kahramanmaraş rescued a 17-year-old boy and his 21-year-old brother from under the rubble after almost 198 hours. According to local media, their mother was also rescued from the rubble there two days ago. The brothers later told the media that the protein powder that one of them uses for sports also helped them survive. “And also a mobile phone, if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be here, we slept most of the time and we also prayed to God,” one of the brothers told TRT TV later in the hospital.
One young woman was picked up by rescuers 203 hours after the earthquake. According to the Turkish press, rescue workers in Hatay province pulled a man and a woman from the rubble an hour later. After 206 hours, it was possible to pull another person alive from the ruins in Kahramanmaraş province.
Erdogan also said today that over 81,000 injured people were hospitalized due to the earthquake, and a large part of them, according to him, have already been released from the hospital. According to Erdogan, over 8,000 people have been rescued from the ruins since February 6, but the president did not say how many of them are still alive. After spending several days under the rubble, the people rescued from the rubble were hypothermic, some were also injured, so apparently not all of them were saved by the doctors.
According to Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay, 574 children whose parents did not survive the earthquake were also pulled from the rubble alive.
However, after more than a week, rescue operations in the affected areas are being reduced, some foreign teams already left Turkey at the weekend or on Monday . Rescuers from Russia, for example, announced the departure today, Anadolu Agency wrote, referring to the Kremlin's statement. The Czech rescuers will probably stay in Turkey for a few more days, they do not yet plan to return early.
The Syrian non-governmental organization White Helmets, which is conducting rescue operations in the rebel-held region, also announced the nearing end of the search today. “We are nearing the end. Everything indicates that there are no (survivors), but we are trying to carry out final checks in all places,” the head of the White Helmets, Ráid Sálih, told Reuters. Al Jazeera television reported today that 14 Syrian doctors who live in the United States also arrived in the rebel-controlled area today to help.
Aid in the affected areas is now also focused on the construction of field hospitals. According to the newspaper Hürriyet, teams from Spain, France, Iran, India, Israel, Britain, Belgium and Russia, among others, are stationed there. The Turkish daily also wrote today that in the ten Turkish provinces affected by the earthquake, the government has built over 206,000 tents for people who have lost their roof over their heads.
In addition to food, people in the affected areas mainly need clothing. But the problem is also the lack of sanitary facilities, according to the daily Hürriyet, the spread of scabies is reported from Adiyaman province and children are suffering from diarrhea.
The Czechs are searching two places in Adiyaman, they assume they are trapped there
Czech rescuers, who have been helping Turkey after the earthquake since last week, continue to work with other teams at two locations in the city of Adiyaman. It is a large wasteland, in one place they assume 12 to 16 buried, in the other they are not able to determine it even in cooperation with local people. Jakub Kozák, spokesman for the Czech fire brigade, informed journalists about this today. So far, according to him, rescuers from the Czech Republic have recovered 50 dead, two survivors and assisted colleagues from another team in rescuing a woman in Adiyaman.
The security situation in the city has not changed, according to the spokesman. “It is still true that our team does not feel any form of security threat,” said Kozák. Some foreign rescuers are withdrawing from Turkey prematurely due to the deterioration of the security situation.
Kozák said that the Czech rescuers are now in a designated sector with the American team, they take turns every six hours, their camp is still in the same place and they move around the city in two minibuses and a van. “We have canines continuously assigned to a rapid response group for the needs of nearby teams, their deployment is coordinated by the local response commander,” added the spokesman.
According to his previous information, the Czechs will probably stay in Turkey for a few more days, and they do not yet plan to end their activities early , despite reports of a deteriorating security situation from other areas of Turkey. Rescue work in the country has already been prematurely terminated by the Israelis, Austrians and Slovaks. According to The Times of Israel, the spokesman for the Israeli rescuers said that he also had information about kidnapping threats to foreign groups. On Saturday, Austrian and German rescuers operating in Hatay province announced they would suspend operations due to safety concerns. According to them, there is increasing aggression among the local groups, and they said they also heard gunshots. However, unlike the area where the Czechs operate, the province of Hatay is directly on the border with Syria, where the civil war continues.
