More than 46,000 people have been killed in the earthquake that struck Turkiye and Syria and the toll is expected to soar, with some 345,000 apartments in Turkiye now known to have been destroyed, and many still missing.
As Turkiye attempts to manage its worst modern disaster, concerns were growing over the victims of the tragedy in Syria, with the World Food Programme (WFP) pressuring authorities in the northwest to stop blocking access to the area as it seeks to help hundreds of thousands of people ravaged by earthquakes.
Twelve days after the quake hit, workers from Kyrgyzstan tried to save a Syrian family of five from the rubble of a building in Antakya city in southern Turkiye.
Three people, including a child, were rescued alive.
The mother and father survived but the child died later of dehydration, the rescue team said.
One older sister and a twin did not make it.
“We heard shouts when we were digging today an hour ago. When we find people who are alive we are always happy,” Atay Osmanov, a member of the rescue team, told Reuters.
Ten ambulances waited on a nearby street that was blocked to traffic to allow the rescue work.
Workers asked for complete silence and for everybody to crouch or sit as the teams climbed further up to the top of the rubble of the building where the family was found to listen for any more sounds using an electronic detector.
As rescue efforts continued one worker yelled into the rubble: “Take a deep breath if you can hear my voice.”
The head of Turkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), Yunus Sezer, said the search and rescue efforts will largely stop tonight.
The death toll in Turkiye stands at 40,642 from the quake while neighbouring Syria has reported more than 5,800 deaths, a toll that has not changed for days.
Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, WFP Director David Beasley said the Syrian and Turkish governments had been co-operating very well, but that its operations were being hampered in northwestern Syria.
The agency last week said that it was running out of stocks there and called for more border crossings to be opened from Turkiye.
“The problems we are running into [are with] the cross-line operations into northwest Syria where the northwestern Syrian authorities are not giving us the access we need,” said Beasley. “That is bottlenecking our operations. That has to get fixed straight away.”
“Time is running out and we are running out of money. Our operation is about $50mn a month for our earthquake response alone so unless Europe wants a new wave of refugees, we need get the support we need,” he added.
In Syria, already shattered by more than a decade of civil war, the bulk of fatalities have been in the northwest.
The area is controlled by insurgents at war with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad which has complicated efforts to get aid to people.
Thousands of Syrians who had sought refuge in Turkiye from the civil war have returned to their homes in the war zone – at least for now.
Medics and experts voiced concerns over the possible spread of infection in the area where tens of thousands of buildings collapsed last week leaving sanitation infrastructure damaged.
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said yesterday that although there had been a rise in intestinal and upper respiratory infections, the numbers did not pose a serious threat to public health.
“Our priority now is to fight against the conditions that can threaten public health and to prevent infectious diseases,” he told a news conference in southern Hatay province.
Aid organisations say the survivors will need help for months to come with so much crucial infrastructure destroyed.
Neither Turkiye nor Syria have said how many people are still missing following the quake.
The quake – in one of the world’s most active seismic zones – hit populated areas as many slept, in homes that had not been built to resist such powerful tremors.
The disaster has put pressure on the Turkish government to explain why such poor-quality buildings were allowed to be erected.
Turkish officials had promised after a quake in 1999 killed more than 17,000 people in northwestern Turkiye that building regulations would be strengthened.
Officers have arrested dozens of contractors as the government promises to crack down on lax building standards.
More than 84,000 buildings either collapsed, need urgent demolition or were severely damaged in the earthquake, officials said.