Turkey earthquake death toll and miraculous rescue

His government also authorized the delivery of humanitarian aid to the front lines of the country’s 12-year civil war. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) earlier said it was running out of stock as war conditions in rebel-held northwest Syria complicated relief efforts.

Erdoğan visited Turkey’s Adiyaman province on Friday and admitted the government’s response was not as swift as he had hoped.

“We now have the largest search and rescue team in the world, but the reality is that search operations are not as fast as we would have liked,” he said.

He also said looting of shops had taken place in some areas.

Erdogan is running for re-election in a poll scheduled for May 14, and opposition is using the issue to attack him. Elections may now be postponed due to the disaster.

In Diyarbakir to the east, 32-year-old Sebahat Varli and her son Serhat were rescued and taken to hospital on Friday morning, 100 hours after the quake.

Across the Syrian border, White Helmets Group rescuers used their hands to dig through plaster and cement to reach the young girl’s bare feet. She was still wearing pink pajamas.

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But hopes of finding more survivors were fading.

victims of australia

Suat Bayram from Melbourne was one of three Australian players reported dead When an earthquake hit southern Turkey.

In a social media post, her daughter Ebul Hudaverdi confirmed the death of a 69-year-old woman who was visiting Kirikan in Turkey’s Hatay region when the disaster struck.

“We have lost our beloved father/grandfather Suat Bayram,” she wrote.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) confirmed the death of an Australian woman on Saturday morning but gave no further details. It said it is providing support to families of women and men identified by domestic families.

In the Syrian town of Jandalis, Nasser Al-Wakar sobbed as he sat on a pile of rubble and twisted metal that had been his family’s home, his face buried in the baby clothes one of his children was carrying.

“Bilal, oh, Bilal,” he cried, yelling the names of his dead children.

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The death toll from the 7.8-magnitude quake and several powerful aftershocks in both countries surpasses the 17,000 killed in 1999 when an equally powerful earthquake struck northwestern Turkey.

It ranks as the seventh deadliest natural disaster of the century, following Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami, followed by an earthquake in neighboring Iran in 2003 that killed nearly 31,000 people.

Turkey’s health minister said the death toll in Turkey rose to 20,213 on Friday. Over 3,500 people have been killed in Syria. Many more remain under the rubble.

According to Turkish officials and the United Nations, about 24.4 million people have been affected in Syria and Turkey in an area stretching about 450 km from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east. In Syria, people were killed as far as Hama, which is 250 kilometers from the epicenter.

Many people set up shelters in supermarket parking lots, mosques, roadsides, or in abandoned buildings. Survivors are often desperate for food, water, and heat.

U.S. Brigadier General Andrew Priddy, commander of the European Naval Task Force, arrived Thursday at Incirlik Air Force Base, used by U.S. forces, about 200 kilometers west of the quake’s epicenter. Washington Post.

General Christopher Cavoli said the U.S. military is already supporting search and rescue operations, providing medical assistance and other assistance.

The United Nations had called for aid to flow more freely to Syria, especially to the northwest, which it estimated needed more than 4 million people already before the earthquake.

Since Monday, dozens of aid aircraft have arrived in areas held by the Assad regime, but few have reached the northwest.

According to the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, 14 trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossed from Turkey to northern Syria on Friday. They carried electric stoves, tents, blankets, etc.

AP and Reuters

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