Turkey-Syria earthquake: Quake toll rises to 28,000 amid looting chaos
Unrest has disrupted rescue efforts following the earthquake as the combined death toll in Turkey and Syria rises to at least 28,000.
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Unrest in southern Turkey has disrupted rescue efforts following the devastating earthquake as the combined death toll in Turkey and Syria rises to at least 28,000.
Security concerns led some aid operations to be suspended, and 48 people have been arrested for looting or trying to defraud victims in the aftermath of the quake in Turkey, state media reported.
It comes as hope of finding more survivors is fading despite some miraculous rescues, including a five-year-old girl in Syria.
The little girl, named Aisha, was carried by rescuers to safety from the rubble on an orange stretcher.
A heartbreaking photo, posted by Reuters, showed the child lying unconcosious while she was carried to safety.
Earlier on Saturday, rescuers in Turkey pulled two women alive from the rubble of collapsed buildings after they were been trapped for 122 hours.
In southern Turkey, German rescuers and the Austrian army paused search operations on Saturday, citing clashes between unnamed groups.
There are fears that security is expected to worsen as food supplies dwindle, one rescuer told the BBC.
And nearly 50 people have been arrested for looting, with several guns seized, local media reported.
Turkey’s President said he would use emergency powers to punish anyone breaking the law.
LOVING TRIBUTE TO AUSSIE GRANDFATHER
A Melbourne grandfather who died in the Turkey-Syria earthquakes has been remembered as an “amazing human being” who loved keeping fit and dancing.
Speaking exclusively to the Saturday Herald Sun, loved ones of 69-year-old Greenvale man Suat Bayram said they were clinging onto hope that their close family friend would be found alive as it emerged that three Australians had been killed.
Nesime Weinman, who currently lives on the Gold Coast, was a close family friend of Mr Bayram, who had known her parents for more than 45 years after fleeing Cyprus in 1975 with his wife, Sadiye, and arriving in Melbourne.
Ms Weinman said she received news of Mr Bayram’s sudden death about 6am on Saturday morning, shattering her family’s hopes that he would survive the earthquakes.
“We were clinging onto hope and not even thinking about the thought that he would have been one of the people that was tragically killed as a result,” she said.
“Then receiving that news so early this morning, it’s still quite surreal. We are trying to come to terms with it. It’s very, very hard.
“It’s really hard to accept the fact that he’s gone, and gone so tragically.”
Ms Weinman said Mr Bayram had always loved keeping active, and continued to run marathons up until his death.
“He loved his running. He used to do marathons all the time. “He loved it. He was always fit.”
The close family friend remembered Mr Bayram as a standout dancer who was an introvert by nature.
“At our wedding, he was the centre of attention. He was an introverted person, but at the same time he loved to showcase things like that. He loved dancing,” she said.
Mr Bayram, who was holidaying in Turkey’s south with his nephew when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck on Monday, remained a central figure in Ms Weinman’s life, and those of his grandchildren.
“He used to take myself, his older son Jay and daughter Ebru to Turkish school every Saturday morning,” she said.
“He played a really huge part in our lives.
“He went there (Turkey) for a holiday and was playing with his grandchildren just two days before he left.”
Ms Weinman said the nature of Mr Bayman’s death overseas has made it difficult to honour Muslim burial customs, which often require the body of the deceased to be buried within 24 hours of their death.
Ms Weinman plans to fly to Melbourne in the coming days to support Mr Bayram’s family.
WOMAN THIRD AUSTRALIAN KILLED IN TURKEY EARTHQUAKE
The bodies of Melbourne man and a woman whose name has not been made public have been identified by family members in Turkey, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed, brining the number of Australians killed on the earthquake to three.
Suat Bayram, 69, was holidaying in Turkey’s south when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit on Monday.
They had been part of a vigil in Melbourne yesterday and have been calling on greater Australian government action.
Family of Sydney man Can Pahali, who was also holidaying in Turkey when the tremor struck, confirmed on Thursday their relative’s body had been found.
The death toll from the devastating quake exceeds 24,000, as stories of miracle rescues were also still being reported.
An Australian caught up in the catastrophic earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria earlier in the week is safe and accounted for, according to Foreign Minister Penny Wong. It comes as rescuers pulled several people alive from the shattered remnants of buildings on Friday, some who survived more than 100 hours trapped under crushed concrete in the bitter cold after a catastrophic earthquake slammed Turkey and Syria, killing more than 23,000.
The survivors included six relatives who huddled in a small pocket under the rubble, a teenager who drank his own urine to slake his thirst, and a 4-year-old boy offered a jelly bean to calm him down as he was shimmied out.
Australian search and rescue experts have departed for the earthquake impact zones as part of a giant international aid effort.
Australia is sending 72 personnel and 22 tonnes of equipment including first aid supplies, tools, cameras, and sub-ground listening equipment to allow them to search for any possible survivors.
MOMENT MIRACLE DOG RESCUED FROM EARTHQUAKE RUBBLE
Cotton by name, but concrete by nature.
A building fell on top of the small dog Pamuk, named for his white cotton-like curls, during the Turkey earthquake. After three days, the little guy was thirsty but unbroken by mounds of concrete surrounding him.
Pamuk is the latest miracle survival after rescuers continue to sift through the damage, finding children among the survivors after almost 100 hours even as the death toll approaches 22,000.
Video of the puppy rescue quickly went viral as a beacon of hope, with Pamuk drinking from his saviour’s hands before being freed from concrete and steel beams.
Rescuers scoured debris in a desperate search for survivors on Friday four days after a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing nearly 22,000 people, as the United States offered an $85-million aid package.
The first UN aid deliveries arrived on Thursday in Syrian rebel-held zones, but chances of finding survivors have dimmed since the passing of the three-day mark that experts consider a critical period to save lives.
The US Agency for International Development said its aid package will go to partners on the ground “to deliver urgently needed aid for millions of people”, including through food, shelter and emergency health services.
It will also support safe drinking water and sanitation to prevent the outbreak of disease, USAID said in a statement.
Bitter cold hampered search efforts in both countries, but more than 80 hours after the disaster struck, 16-year-old Melda Adtas was found alive in the southern Turkish city of Antakya.
Her overjoyed father was in tears and the grieving nation cheered an agonisingly rare piece of good news.
“My dear, my dear!” he called out as rescuers pulled the teen out of the rubble and the watching crowd broke into applause.
The 7.8-magnitude quake struck early Monday as people slept, in a region where many had already suffered loss and displacement due to Syria’s civil war.
Top aid officials were planning to visit affected areas with World Health Organisation head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths both announcing trips.
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, travelled to strife-torn Aleppo, Syria.
“Communities struggling after years of fierce fighting are now crippled by the earthquake,” Spoljaric tweeted.
“As this tragic event unfolds, people’s desperate plight must be addressed.”
An aid convoy crossed the Turkish border into rebel-held northwestern Syria on Thursday, the first delivery into the area since the quake, an official at the Bab al-Hawa crossing told AFP.
The crossing is the only way UN assistance can reach civilians without going through areas controlled by Syrian government forces.
A decade of civil war and Syrian-Russian aerial bombardment had already destroyed hospitals, collapsed the economy and prompted electricity, fuel and water shortages.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council to authorise the opening of new cross-border humanitarian aid points between Turkey and Syria.
Four million people living in the rebel-held areas have had to rely on the Bab al-Hawa crossing as part of an aid operation authorised by the UN Security Council nearly a decade ago.
“This is the moment of unity, it’s not a moment to politicise or to divide but it is obvious that we need massive support,” Guterres said.
MIRACLE RESCUES AFTER 80 HOURS AS QUAKE TOLL SOARS
Two children have been rescued from under collapsed buildings after more than 80 hours as the death toll from dual earthquakes in Turkey and Syria hit 21,000.
Monday’s quake was the largest Turkey has seen since 1939, when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province.
Officials and medics said 18,342 people had died in Turkey and 3,377 in Syria from Monday’s tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 21,719.
But as hopes fade for survivors, stories continue to come out of miraculous survivals including a 12-year-old boy rescued from beneath a pile of rubble after 84 hours.
Another incredible rescue saw six-year-old Besir Yildiz rescued from in Diyarbakir, Turkey, after spending almost 80 hours under the rubble.
ANGER GROWS IN TURKEY
Meanwhile, anger has grown in Turkey over the government’s response to the deadly earthquake.
Thousands have been forced to sleep in the debris ridden streets of Adiyaman in Turkey as temperatures plummeted and water and electricity virtually non-existent.
But many have been left furious over the government’s slow response to the tragedy after they claimed rescue teams had arrived in the city with the wrong equipment to dig through the rubble.
“Nobody was here to help us, I have complaints about all the authorities here,” Nursen Guler told NBC.
“There are no teams here, everyone is waiting for rescue teams.”
“Where is the state? Where have they been for two days? We are begging them. Let us do it, we can get them out,” Sabiha Alinak told Reuters.
It comes as Turkey is working to open two more border crossings with Syria to allow more humanitarian aid to enter the country after the two neighbours were hit by a huge earthquake.
Currently just one border crossing, in Turkey’s southern Hatay province, is open for lifesaving aid to rebel-held regions of Syria under the authorisation of the United Nations Security Council.
“There is damage to some roads on the Syrian side of the border. There has been some difficulty for our and international aid to get through because of the destruction,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters late Wednesday.
“For this reason, we are working on the opening of two more posts,” he said. “Because there is a humanitarian situation, we are working on also opening posts where the regime is in control,” he added, referring to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Thousands of homes were destroyed on both sides of the border after the tremor and the subsequent aftershocks.
The areas around the current border crossing suffered significant damage after the earthquake, and aid workers on the ground have also been affected by the catastrophe.
Humanitarian aid in rebel-held areas usually arrives through Turkey via a cross-border mechanism created in 2014 by a UN Security Council resolution.
But it is contested by Damascus and its ally Moscow, which see it as a violation of Syrian sovereignty.
Under pressure from Russia and China, the number of crossing points has been reduced over time from four to one.
AUSSIE MAN FOUND DEAD IN TURKEY QUAKE
An Australian man missing in quake-devastated Turkey has been found dead, his family has confirmed.
Sydney man Can Pahali was holidaying in Turkey when the tremor struck.
“We have lost my uncle,” Mr Pahali’s niece Katherine Sab told The Daily Telegraph on Thursday morning.
Family members previously said they were 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.
Before the tragic news of his death, Mr Pahali’s nephew Ilyas left for Abu Dhabi in the hopes of reaching Turkey, in a bid to find his uncle himself.
The devastation comes after the astonishing rescue of a man holding a cigarette from rubble in quake devastated southern Turkey after being trapped for two days.
AMAZING STORIES OF SURVIVAL
Video released by the Turkish Ministry of Defence, who said it was captured at a destroyed apartment complex in Adiyaman on Wednesday morning, shows the survivor holding onto the cigarette as rescue crews place him onto stretcher.
The building collapsed on Monday during the destructive 7.8 magnitude earthquake that has killed over 17,000 people throughout Syria and Turkey.
Wearing a white singlet and covered in dust, the man then puffed on the cigarette before an oxygen mask was placed on his face.
Another incredible rescue took place in Syria, where a local Civil Defence team found a boy, who appeared unharmed, among the ruins of a building that had completely collapsed.
The boy was passed into the arms of a man who watched over the rescue effort with a light shining from his helmet.
As he was being carried away the rescuers cheered and the boy high-fived them and smiled before being taken away to be checked by doctors.
HOSPITAL CARPARK BECOMES MORGUE
Hundreds of body bags are piling up outside Turkey hospitals in the wake of the huge tremor.
Rania Zaboubi scours body bags laid out in the car park of a hospital in southern Turkey in search of her uncle who went missing after Monday’s massive earthquake.
“We found my aunt, but not my uncle,” she says in a choked voice. The Syrian refugee says she lost eight members of her family in the tragedy that has so far claimed the lives of at least 16,000 people in Turkey and neighbouring Syria.
In the parking lot of the main hospital in Antakya, a large city in Turkey’s Hatay province, other survivors were also going from corpse to corpse looking for people they knew.
AFP journalists counted nearly 200 bodies, arranged on either side of tents, on Wednesday evening.
At least 3,356 people died in Hatay, more than a quarter of the dead in Turkey so far reported.
Faced with the magnitude of the disaster, there is not enough space in the vast parking lot. With nowhere else to put them, seven bodies were laid at the foot of a container overflowing with waste.
The hospital has huge cracks along one side. It is still standing, but authorities have decided to evacuate it.
The interior of the building has also been damaged, making it impossible to receive patients, alive or dead.
Patients are treated in red and white tents, and are classified in three colours according to the severity of their injuries.
Many were transported by helicopter to hospitals that withstood the tremors, with many going to Adana.
The dead, however, are stranded on the cold asphalt.
How many have been brought there since Monday? “Too many,” says Yigitcan Kayserili, a volunteer from Ankara. “Maybe 400, maybe 600.”
Kayserili helps families find their dead while also providing psychological support. He has not slept for two days.
In the parking lot, the comings and goings are incessant.
To his right, a man and his son, a curly-haired teenager, lift a body and then move on, showing little emotion.
Behind them, a man slowly drives an old blue sedan. He too has found the body he was looking for, which is lying on the back seat in a black bag. The left door is open to allow the corpse’s legs to stick out.
A long white truck is parked nearby. Unlike many other vehicles on the road to Antakya, it is not being used to haul aid. Instead, it is transporting unidentified bodies.
“About 70 per cent of the bodies here are anonymous,” says Kayserili. Those not recovered after 24 hours are loaded into the truck to end up in mass graves.
“We can put 50 bodies inside,” says Kayserili. “We could put more, but we don’t want to stack them.”
AUSSIE RESCUE TEAM HEADED TO TURKEY
A “highly trained” rescue team will arrive in Turkey by the end of the week to help locate survivors, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. Three Australians are among the missing.
Mr Albanese revealed on Wednesday the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) was co-ordinating an urban search and rescue team of up to 72 people, which will assist Turkish authorities on the ground.
“Our hearts are heavy. It is impossible to look away from the terrible and heartbreaking scenes of loss,” he told parliament.
“There’s a terrible scale of the devastation, whole blocks levelled and buried. But the real devastation, of course, is for people.”
Mr Albanese said the team was “highly trained” to locate survivors, deliver medical assistance, and retrieve people still trapped beneath the rubble.
DFAT was working closely with Fire and Rescue NSW and the Australian Defence Force to co-ordinate their departure “as soon as possible”, he said.
“[The] aim [is] to have people on the ground by the end of this week. I want to thank the personnel and their families in advance,” he said.
“Once again, they’re willing to support people wherever support is needed.”
THREE AUSSIES MISSING
Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed three Australians were missing in Turkey and DFAT is assisting the families.
“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,” Senator Wong said.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s President Erdogan has visited the city of Kahramanmaras where he told residents Turkey’s rescue effort was now “under control” and “getting easier”, following criticism over the national response. Mr Erdogan blamed initial delays to the government response on damaged roads and airports hampering the delivery of emergency aid.
The Syrian Health Ministry placed the toll in government-held areas at more than 1200, and at least 1400 people have died in the rebel-held northwest, according to the White Helmets volunteer agency.
The current total of 11,600-plus, the largest worldwide for an earthquake event in more than a decade, is expected to rise.
TOLL TO RISE FURTHER
Aid agencies and emergency workers warned earlier this the death toll would increase further with many people still trapped under the rubble, and freezing weather conditions hampering rescue efforts.
Iman Shankiti, the World Health Organisation (WHO) representative to Syria, said the numbers of deaths and injuries are rising by the hour.
“We continue to be very concerned about areas which are inaccessible because of the earthquake, which has destroyed some of the areas which are used for transportation,” Dr Shankiti said.
The health system in Syria is also in dire shape, she said, with some hospitals inaccessible due to the quake.
“The health needs are tremendous. I mean, it’s important to note that the health system has suffered for the last 12 years and continue to suffer and continue to be strained by the ongoing emergencies and the last one is this earthquake,” she added.
The WHO is reportedly sending medical teams and three flights of medical supplies, including surgical trauma kits, to Turkey and Syria to assist.
A “high-level delegation” is also on the way to the region to help co-ordinate WHO’s response, it said.
The agency is sending $3 million to help support the emergency response and is “working with partners to provide specialised medical care,” according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“With the weather conditions and ongoing aftershocks, we are in a race against time to save lives. People need shelter, food, clean water and medical care for injuries resulting from the earthquake, but also for other health needs,” Mr Tedros said at a news conference on Wednesday.
– with AFP
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