Turkey, Syria earthquake: victims turn to social media for help
Four Australians have been confirmed missing in Turkey and Syria, as desperate survivors take to social media for help as they lay trapped in rubble.
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Four Australians are unaccounted for in quake devastated Turkey and Syria.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the Senate on Wednesday afternoon that Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) is assisting their families.
“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.
Desperate victims trapped under debris caused by the powerful earthquakes in southeastern Turkey have turned to social media for help.
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 5,400 in Turkey and 1800 in Syria, after the magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes, which happened hours apart, brought down entire apartment blocks in multiple cities.
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.
Another young man, trapped under debris in Iskenderun district of Hatay, posted a video sharing his address, saying: “If you love your God, please come and save us.”
AUSSIE MISSING IN TURKEY, NEWBORN PULLED OUT ALIVE
The distraught relatives of Sydney man Can Pahali are desperately trying to find out if their uncle is alive after family members confirmed he is trapped under a collapsed building following the Turkey earthquake.
His niece, Catherine, told Seven’s Sunrise this morning she has reached out on social media for information.
“I’m only getting information from people that I really don’t even know,” she told the show.
“They are reaching out to me via Instagram and Facebook, it’s just third-party news. I really hope that they are alive. We are clinging on to any hope.”
Mr Pahali, who has been disabled since birth due to polio, had recently travelled to Hatay, near the quake’s epicentre, from Sydney and was staying with his sister when disaster struck on Monday morning, local time.
Several Australians are believed to have been caught up in the disaster but no deaths have been confirmed, according to authorities.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is aware of a small number of Australians reported to be in the region at the time of the earthquake and impacted by the disaster,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
“DFAT is providing consular assistance to those families and is urgently seeking the assistance of local authorities, including rescue teams.
“Our missions in Ankara, Istanbul, and Beirut are monitoring the situation closely.
“Australians affected by the earthquakes and the aftershocks are advised to follow the directions of local authorities.”
EARTHQUAKE DEATH TOLL SOARS
Rescuers in Turkey and Syria are battling rain and freezing conditions in a race against time to find survivors under buildings flattened by the twin earthquakes as the death toll soars past 7800 people.
Officials have warned the death toll could rise even further once collapsed apartment buildings are searched.
By Wednesday morning, more than 8000 people had been rescued from debris in Turkey with 380,000 taking refuge in government shelters, Turkish vice-president, Fuat Oktay, said.
Tremors that inflicted more suffering on a border area, already plagued by conflict, left people on the streets burning debris to try to stay warm as international aid began to arrive.
But 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 the mounting debris of buildings crumbled by a devastating earthquake.
The child’s mother reportedly went into labour as the magnitude 7.8 quake hit on Monday.
“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.
FATHER HOLDS DEAD DAUGHTER’S HAND
A grief-stricken father has been pictured holding the hand of his 15-year-old daughter who was crushed to death beneath the rubble of a building in Kahramanmaras, Turkey.
In an image that has shocked the world, Mesut Hancer is seen crouching on a steep pile of rubble, his left arm stretched out to his side and holding on to the hand of his dead daughter.
The body of the girl, Irmakleyla Hancer, lies on top of a mattress, crushed underneath a huge concrete block.
He was too grief-stricken to speak. He simply sat and held her protruding hand, the rest of her body still hidden by huge slabs of concrete.
23 MILLION AFFECTED BY QUAKE, DISEASES THREATEN KIDS
Up to 23 million people could be affected by the massive earthquake, the WHO warned on Tuesday, promising long-term assistance.
“Event overview maps show that potentially 23 million people are exposed, including around five million vulnerable populations,” the World Health Organisation’s senior emergencies officer Adelheid Marschang said.
“Civilian infrastructure and potentially health infrastructure have been damaged across the affected region, mainly in Turkey and northwest Syria,” she said.
The WHO “considers that the main unmet needs may be in Syria in the immediate and midterm,” Marschang told the WHO’s executive committee in Geneva.
Earlier, UNICEF warned thousands of children and families are at risk in the aftermath.
“The images we’re seeing out of Syria and Türkiye are heart-wrenching,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Our immediate priority is to ensure children and families affected receive the support they so desperately need.”
The situation in Syria where hostilities led to mass displacement and devastated public infrastructure, was already dire and is now even more serious.
UNICEF said waterborne diseases pose an additional deadly threat to children and families.
Millions of people in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel felt the earth shake, with tremors felt as far away as Greenland.
The World Heath Organisation estimated as many as 20,000 people could have been killed.
“There’s continued potential of further collapses to happen so we do often see in the order of eight fold increases on the initial numbers,” the WHO’s senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood said.
AUSTRALIA VOWS $10M IN AID
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese extended the nation’s “deepest sympathies and condolences” to those impacted.
“These multiple earthquakes that hit the region are having a devastating impact, and today I can announce the Australian government will provide an initial $10 million in humanitarian assistance to those affected through our Red Cross partners and through humanitarian agencies,” Mr Albanese said.
The aid would “target those in greatest need,” he said.
“I think all of the world’s thoughts and condolences are with the people in this region who are suffering at this time.”
US President Joe Biden promised his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan the country would send “any and all” aid needed to help recover from a devastating earthquake.
“He reaffirmed the readiness of the United States to provide any and all needed assistance to our NATO ally Turkey in response to this tragedy,” the White House said in a statement.
“He noted that US teams are deploying quickly to support Turkish search and rescue efforts and co-ordinate other assistance.”
‘WE THOUGHT IT WAS THE APOCALYPSE’
Multi-storey apartment buildings full of residents were among the 5606 structures destroyed in Turkey, while Syria announced dozens of collapses, as well as damage to archaeological sites in Aleppo.
“That was the first time we have ever experienced anything like that,” said Melisa Salman, a 23-year-old reporter in the southeastern Turkish city of Kahramanmaras.
“We thought it was the apocalypse.”
“Seven members of my family are under the debris,” Muhittin Orakci, a stunned survivor in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, said.
“My sister and her three children are there. And also her husband, her father-in-law and her mother-in-law.”
Officials said the quake made three major airports in the area inoperable, further complicating deliveries of vital aid.
The initial quake was followed by more than 50 aftershocks, including one measuring 7.5 magnitude
“We hear voices here – and over there, too,” one rescuer told NTV in front of a flattened building Diyarbakir.
“There may be 200 people under the rubble.”
In the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa, rescuers were working into the night to try and pull survivors from rubble.
“There is a family I know under the rubble,” said Omer El Cuneyd, 20.
“Until 11am or noon, my friend was still answering the phone. But she no longer answers. She is down there.”
Despite temperatures falling below zero, frightened residents in the city spent the night on the streets, huddling around fires for warmth.
Mustafa Koyuncu was sitting packed inside his car with his wife and their five children, too scared to move.
“We are waiting here because we can’t go home,” the 55-year-old said.
“Everyone is afraid.”
In Syria, pro-government media said several buildings had partially collapsed in Hama, central Syria.
The head of Syria’s National Earthquake Centre, Raed Ahmed, told pro-government radio that this was “the biggest earthquake recorded in the history of the centre”.
Osama Abdel Hamid, said his family was sleeping the when shaking began.
“I woke up my wife and my children and we ran towards the door,” he said.
“We opened it and suddenly all the building collapsed.”
A spokesman for Syria’s civil defence said teams were scrambling to rescue trapped people.
“Many buildings in different cities and villages in northwestern Syria collapsed … even now, many families are under the rubble,” said Ismail Alabdallah.
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Originally published as Turkey, Syria earthquake: victims turn to social media for help
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