Rescue teams made a final effort Thursday to find survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria that left many communities unrecognizable to their inhabitants and led the Turkish president to declare it the “disaster of the century.” The death toll exceeded 20,000.
The quake affected an area that is home to 13.5 million people in Turkey and an unknown number in Syria and extends beyond the distance of London to Paris or Boston to Philadelphia. Even with an army of people participating in the rescue effort, teams had to choose where to help.
The scene from the air showed the extent of the devastation, with entire neighborhoods of skyscrapers reduced to twisted metal, pulverized concrete, and exposed wires.
In Adiyaman, Associated Press journalists saw someone begging rescuers to go through the rubble of a building where family members were trapped. They refused, saying that there was no one alive there and that they had to prioritize areas with possible survivors.
A man who gave his name only as Ahmet out of fear of government reprisals later asked the AP: “How can I go home and sleep? My brother is there. He may still be alive.
The death toll from Monday’s 7.8-magnitude catastrophe rose to nearly 21,000, dwarfing the more than 18,400 who died in the 2011 earthquake off Fukushima, Japan that triggered a tsunami and the 18,000 people estimated to have They died in an earthquake near the Turkish capital, Istanbul. in 1999.
The new number, which is sure to rise, includes more than 17,600 people in Turkey and more than 3,300 in civil war-ravaged Syria. Tens of thousands were also injured.
Although experts say people could survive for a week or more, the chances of finding survivors in the freezing temperatures were dwindling. As emergency crews and panicked family members dug through the rubble, occasionally finding people alive, the focus began to shift to demolishing dangerously unstable structures.
The DHA news agency reported the rescue of a 10-year-old boy in Antakya. The agency said doctors had to amputate her arm to free her and that her parents and three of her siblings had died. A 17-year-old girl made it out alive in Adiyaman, and rescuers found a 20-year-old girl in Kahramanmaras shouting “God is great.”
In Nurdagi, a city of about 40,000 nestled amid snow-capped mountains about 56 kilometers (35 miles) from the quake’s epicenter, vast swaths of the city were leveled, with just one building unaffected. Even those that did not collapse suffered heavy damage, making them unsafe.
Crowds of onlookers, mostly family members of people trapped inside, watched as heavy machines tore apart a building that had collapsed, its floors coming together with little more than a few inches between them.
Mehmet Yilmaz, 67, watched from a distance as bulldozers and other demolition equipment began to tear down what was left of the building where six members of his family, including four children, had been trapped.
He estimated that about 80 people were still under the rubble and doubted they would find anyone alive.
“There’s no hope. We cannot give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs, and there was nothing,” Yilmaz said.
Mehmet Nasir Dusan, 67, sat watching as the remains of the nine-story building were brought down in clouds of dust. He said he had no hope of reuniting with his five family members trapped under the rubble.
Still, he said, getting their bodies back would bring little comfort.
“We will not leave this site until we can get their bodies back, even if it takes 10 days,” Dusan said. “My family is destroyed now.”
In Kahramanmaras, the closest town to the epicenter, a sports arena the size of a basketball court served as a makeshift mortuary to accommodate and identify bodies.
On the ground lay dozens of bodies wrapped in blankets or black shrouds. At least one appeared to be that of a 5 or 6 year old.
At the entrance, a man wept into a black body bag lying next to another in the bed of a small truck. “I am 70 years old. God should have taken me, not my son, ”he cried.
Workers continued to carry out rescue operations in Kahramanmaras, but it was clear that many of those trapped in the collapsed buildings had already died. A rescuer was heard saying that his psychological state was declining and that the smell of death was becoming too unbearable.
In northwestern Syria, the first UN aid trucks since the earthquake have arrived into the rebel-held area from Turkey, underscoring the difficulty of getting aid to people there. In the Turkish city of Antakya, dozens of people rushed for help in front of a truck distributing children’s coats and other supplies.
One survivor, Ahmet Tokgoz, called on the government to evacuate people from the region. Many of those who have lost their homes have found refuge in tents, stadiums and other temporary accommodation, but others have slept in the open.
“Especially with this cold, it is not possible to live here,” he said. “If people haven’t died trapped under the rubble, they will freeze to death.”
Winter weather and damage to roads and airports have made it difficult to respond. Some in Turkey have complained that the government was slow to respond, a perception that could hurt Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he faces a tough re-election battle in May.
“As you know, the earthquake hit an area 500 kilometers (311 miles) in diameter where 13.5 million of our people live, and that made our work difficult,” Erdogan said on Thursday.
In the Turkish city of Elbistan, rescuers stood on the rubble of a collapsed house and pulled out an elderly woman.
Rescue teams called for silence, hoping to hear muffled pleas for help, with the Syrian group of paramedics known as the White Helmets saying “every second could mean saving a life”.
But more and more frequently, teams were removing bodies. In Antakya, more than 100 bodies were waiting to be identified in a makeshift morgue opposite a hospital.
With the chances of finding people alive dwindling, crews in some locations began demolishing buildings. Authorities called off search and rescue operations in the cities of Kilis and Sanliurfa, where the destruction was not as severe as in other areas. Vice President Fuat Oktay said the rescue work was almost complete in Diyarbakir, Adana and Osmaniye.
Across the border in Syria, aid came bit by bit. The UN is authorized to deliver aid through a single border crossing, and road damage has prevented this until now. UN officials advocated that humanitarian concerns take precedence over wartime politics.
It was not clear how many people were still missing in both countries.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said more than 110,000 rescue personnel are now involved in the effort and more than 5,500 vehicles have been dispatched, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers and bulldozers. The Foreign Ministry said 95 countries have offered help.
