Turkey, Syria earthquake: Four Aussies missing as quake victims seek help via social media

DFAT is helping the families of at least four Australians who are missing in Turkey and Syria, as trapped victims use social media to alert rescuers.

Four Australians are missing in earthquake devastated Turkey and Syria.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) is assisting the families of the missing Aussies.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance, including to the families of four Australians who were in the region at the time of the earthquake and I regret to say at this stage remain unaccounted-for,” Senator Wong said.

“Obviously their safety is our immediate priority and consular officials in Ankara are working with local authorities and others on the ground to assist them,” she said.

One of the missing Australians has been identified as Can Pahali, from Glebe in Sydney’s inner west.

Family members said they are living “a nightmare” after losing all contact with their uncle, who was in Turkey visiting his two sisters at the time the first quake hit.

The family have been told to simply sit and wait, but Mr Pahali’s nephew Ilyas has left for Abu Dhabi in the hopes of reaching Turkey, to find his uncle himself.

Relatives are fearful for Can Pahali.

“He is going to find him and get some clarity on where he is,” Ilya’s sister Katherine Sab said.

“We are very disappointed with DFAT. We need more help from them, instead of just being told to wait,” she said. “He is an Australian citizen, they should be helping him. They aren’t helping their only citizen lost in a catastrophic earthquake.”

Thousands of social media posts, videos, and messages, some pinpointing specific locations, have led to the rescue of some of those trapped, according to reports by Al Jazeera.

The death toll has exceeded 9500 lives – 6957 in Turkey and 25470 in Syria – after the magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes, which happened hours apart, brought down entire apartment blocks in multiple cities.

Mesut Hancer holds the hand of his 15-year-old daughter, Irmak, who died in the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, close to the quake's epicentre. Picture: Adem Altan/AFP

Some extraordinary survival tales have emerged, including a newborn baby pulled alive from rubble in Syria, still tied by her umbilical cord to her mother who died in Monday’s quake.

Footage shared online showed the child’s extended relatives lifting the dust-covered baby to safety as they scaled debris.

“We heard a voice while we were digging,” Khalil al-Suwadi, a relative, told AFP. “We cleared the dust and found the baby with the umbilical cord (intact) so we cut it and my cousin took her to hospital.”

The infant is the sole survivor of her immediate family, the rest of whom were killed in the rebel-held town of Jindayris.

A man trapped in rubble reacts while debris is removed to work on is rescue in Hatay, Turkey.Picture: Bulent Kilic/AFP

Firat Yayla, a YouTuber known as Charmquell, posted a video on his Instagram Stories early on Tuesday after the first earthquake.

Pleading with his followers to save him, Mr Yayla said he was stuck under the rubble in the central Antakya district of Hatay province.

“Friends, we are stuck under the earthquake,” he said in the video. “Mother! Are you okay? Mother! Tell me you hid somewhere. Please help!” he said, before ending the video with his home address.

He later updated his Instagram informing his followers he’d been saved, but his mother remained missing.

It comes as an Australian woman told of the “sheer terror” of the Turkey quake and how she ripped part of a door off to escape the 10th floor of a building.

UNICEF senior emergency specialist Melinda Young speaks about the Turkey earthquake. Picture: Sky News

Melinda Young, a senior UNICEF emergency specialist, said she was shaken awake by the astonishing force of the 7.8 earthquake.

Survivors are “ experiencing here an enormous amount of fear,” she said.

“I was up on the 10th floor of a hotel when the earthquake hit – it was absolutely petrifying. It was such a long earthquake, kids were screaming, families were dragging people out into the corridors to get them outside,” she told Sky News.

“It was like being in an aeroplane in very bad turbulence. I was asleep, I just couldn't stand up, I was focusing on, get pants on, get shirt on, get passport, get wallet, get out the door – I ripped the side of the door off just to get out.”

What followed was a “sense of sheer terror”.

“The deadly magnitude of that force is hard to describe,” she said.

Members of the Syrian civil defence, known as the White Helmets, transport a casualty from the rubble of buildings in the village of Azmarin in Syria's rebel-held northwestern Idlib province. Picture: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP

Earthquake survivors gather to collect supplies at a diaper distribution in Hatay. Picture: AFP

UNICEF staff have been sleeping in their offices and unable to wash for two days.

“We are flushing the toilets with snow because we have run out of water,” she said.

But that is nothing compared to what people were experiencing elsewhere in Turkey and in neighbouring Syria.

“For kids in Syria there (are) absolutely horrendous conditions with houses and schools destroyed or damaged, water knocked out as well,” Ms Young, who is formerly of Sydney, said.

The situation in Syria after 10 years of conflict would take “years” of recovery, she added.

Desperate victims trapped under debris caused by the powerful earthquakes in southeastern Turkey have turned to social media for help.

For some survivors, shock is giving way to anger that they have been left to fend for themselves.

Civilians look for survivors under the rubble of collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras. Picture: Adem Altan/AFP

“I can’t get my brother back from the ruins. I can’t get my nephew back. Look around here. There is no state official here, for God’s sake,” said Ali Sagiroglu in Kahramanmaras.

“For two days we haven’t seen the state around here … Children are freezing from the cold,” he added.

Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) will lead a major deployment of Australian personnel to the earthquake zone later this week.

NSW Minister for Emergency Services and Resilience Steph Cooke said out of the 72 Australian personnel, 52 will be FRNSW firefighters specially trained in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR).

“The scenes which have played out in Türkiye and Syria in recent days are shocking and distressing, and NSW is ready and willing to do everything we can to assist,” Ms Cooke said.

Women hug each other near a collapsed building near Gaziantep, Turkey. Picture: Getty Images.

“Our State is home to some of the most highly-skilled emergency services personnel in the world and I am certain they will make a valuable contribution to the response in the devastated communities,” SHE SAID.

A winter storm has compounded the misery by rendering many roads — some damaged by the quake — almost impassable, resulting in long traffic jams.

“It is now a race against time,” said World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

WHO warned up to 23 million people could be affected by the quakes and urged nations to rush help to the disaster zone.