Rescue work is progressing in earthquake-hit Turkey and Syria through the night into Tuesday as the latest reports from the ravaged countries put the death toll around 4,300.
While Turkey's toll rose to 2,921 as of Tuesday morning, 1,451 deaths and 3,531 injuries have been reported by officials in Syria. Turkey’s head of disaster services pegs the number of injured at 15, 834.
The magnitude 7.8 quake ripped through the two countries on Monday morning, causing apartment buildings and hospitals to collapse.
Meanwhile, the freezing weather is affecting the search operations as hundreds of rescue personnel continue to search through the rubble and debris, hoping to pull out survivors. Authorities fear the death toll from Monday's earthquake and aftershocks could climb, reported Associated Press.
"The weather conditions and the scale of the disaster make it hard for our teams to reach the region," Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca told reporters on Monday, adding that many helicopters could not take off today due to weather conditions. Both Turkey and Syria are battling heavy snowstorms, and the temperature has plummetted to sub-zero levels.
Many are still trapped inside the collapsed buildings and are crying out for help within the mountain of debris. "They're making noises but nobody is coming," he said. "We're devastated, we're devastated. My God... They're calling out. They're saying, 'Save us,' but we can't save them. How are we going to save them? There has been nobody since the morning," a resident named Deniz was quoted by Reuters.
People and emergency teams search for people in the rubble in a destroyed building in Gaziantep, Turkey | AP
Seismic activity continued to rattle the region, including another jolt nearly as powerful as the initial quake.
Many were also left homeless in both countries. "We barely made it out of the house," said Neset Guler, from the city of Kahramanmaras, which suffered heavy losses in the quake. "Our situation is a disaster. We are hungry, we are thirsty. It's miserable," Guler told Reuters as the family huddled around a bonfire to keep themselves warm.
Syria
The area where the quake struck in Syria is divided between government-held territory and the country's last opposition-held enclave. As per reports, hundreds of families are still trapped in rubble in rebel-held areas.
The affected areas are home to over four million people displaced from other parts of the country by the war. Many live in buildings that are already wrecked from past bombardments.
Thousands of buildings were reported collapsed in a wide area extending from Syria's cities of Aleppo and Hama to Turkey's Diyarbakir, more than 330 kilometres to the northeast.
Syrian Civil Defense workers and security forces search through the wreckage of collapsed buildings, in Aleppo, Syria | AP
The opposition's Syrian Civil Defense described the situation in the enclave as disastrous. The opposition-held area, centred on the province of Idlib, has been under siege for years, with frequent Russian and government airstrikes. The territory depends on a flow of aid from nearby Turkey for everything from food to medical supplies.
At a hospital in Idlib, Osama Abdel Hamid said most of his neighbours died when their shared four-story building collapsed. As he fled with his wife and three children, a wooden door fell on them, shielding them from falling debris. "God gave me a new lease on life," he said.
The rescue work in Syria is affected due to the lack of resources, UN's Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, El-Mostafa Benlamlih, told CNN. ""The search and rescue is hampered by the situation here where there is a lack of heavy equipment and machinery to clear the rubble," he said.
He said the situation in Syria is really, really, tough." Beyond the crisis that we have been given, it's not easy to import things.... It's not easy to find spare parts for that equipment. And nobody expected this anyway – so it wasn't at the top of priorities," he added.
Aid pours in
Countries, including India, have promised aid to Turkey. India has dispatched the first batch of earthquake relief material to Turkey aboard an Indian Air Force aircraft. The shipment consisted of an expert National Disaster Response Force search and rescue team, including both male and female personnel, highly-skilled dog squads, an array of medical supplies, advanced drilling equipment, and other crucial tools required for the aid efforts.
US President Joe Biden too called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday and said it was sending search-and-rescue teams to support Turkey's efforts.
Turkey has declared seven days of mourning for the dead.
The quake, which was centred on Turkey's southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo. Denmark's geological institute said the tremors reached the east coast of Greenland about eight minutes after the main quake struck Turkey.
(With inputs from PTI)
