Turkey-Syria earthquake: As it happened
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Thousands of Syrian refugees who survived last week's devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey have returned to their war-torn homeland after either losing their homes in the disaster or to care for wounded relatives.
Hundreds of men, women and children could be seen huddled together near the Turkey-Syria border on Thursday, after responding to an announcement on social media that Turkey would allow them to leave for three to six months and then return.
Within 48 hours of Syrian border officials issuing the announcement, 2,795 Syrians in Turkey, mainly from the quake-hit areas of Hatay, Reyhanli and Antakya, crossed into rebel-held Syria via the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, sources familiar with the matter told Middle East Eye.
"We have to go to Syria because the house we were living in has now got cracks," one Syrian told MEE.
"It is not safe and we have no other relatives here in Turkey. We are going back until things get a bit better here."
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Syrians in hard-hit areas head home after devastation
Adiyaman's still-standing clock tower has emerged as an iconic image following last week's devastating earthquake after it froze at exactly 04:17, the moment the first tremor hit.
With millions rendered homeless and forced to sleep in tents, cars or in mosques, anger is growing among the victims over the time it took to receive help.
Many are furious that they didn't see rescue teams until two or three days after the quake, when the window for survivors to be saved was shrinking fast. Chaos then followed, they say, as those that arrived, both Turkish and international, quickly left, some lacking the necessary equipment to extract survivors.
"They [the government] assign incompetent people to important positions and then they ask why did things fail?" said one survivor.
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Time stands still in Adiyaman but anger grows over slow response
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the scale of last week’s deadly earthquake demanded more resources than what the Syrian state had available to it and thanked states that had provided aid in its aftermath, including “Arab brothers and friends”.
“The scale of the disaster and the duties we must undertake are much greater than available resources,” Assad said, in his first televised address since the earthquake in the dead of night on Monday.
The devastating earthquake has led to a thaw in relations between Assad and his Arab neighbours. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi spoke to Assad over the phone for the first time.
The first Saudi plane in a decade landed in Syria’s government-held areas to deliver aid this week. And Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, arrived in Damascus on Wednesday in the first such high-level visit to Syria since Damascus violently cracked down on protests in 2011.
Lacking even temporary accommodation, thousands of Syrian families have been sleeping outdoors in sub-zero temperatures across the opposition-held northwest of the country ever since the devastating earthquakes that struck last Monday.
"I spent the first three days of the disaster in the open, until I was able to find a tent… without the support of aid organisations," Nidal Mustafa Ibrahim, who had to evacuate a house in the village of Azmarin in western Idlib when it began to crack, told Middle East Eye.
"Thank God, I am with my family, and many people in the area where I live miraculously survived. The situation is tragic and difficult to explain," Ibrahim said.
More than 4,400 people have been reported killed and 8,600 injured by the earthquake in northwest Syria, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), while the death toll reported in government-held parts of Syria stands at 1,414.
There are no reliable statistics on how many have died in the aftermath while trying to survive in sub-zero temperatures with no deliveries of aid.
“For Syria, this is a crisis within a crisis,” Sivanka Dhanapala, Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said on Friday: “We’ve had economic shocks, Covid and are now in the depths of winter, with blizzards raging in the affected areas.”
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The destruction of physical infrastructure in Turkey from the 6 February earthquake could amount to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product, or $25bn, JPMorgan said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said in a report published on Thursday that the potential economic impact of the earthquake in Turkey could result in a loss of up to one percent of the country's GDP this year.
The bank added that this is a "reasonable estimate" due to the expected boost from reconstruction efforts later this year, which will offset the negative impact to infrastructure and supply chains.
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Turkey earthquake: JPMorgan estimates direct damage at $25bn
Rescue workers from the Istanbul Fire Department have pulled a 13-year old boy out from under the rubble after he spent 228 hours there following the deadly earthquakes that have hit Turkey and Syria.
Mustafa's life was saved on Wednesday in the southern Turkish city of Antakya, which has been particularly badly impacted.
Video footage released by the Istanbul municipality showed the moment the young teenager was rescued and carried away by emergency teams.
Rescue scenes like this have provided rare moments of hope amidst a sea of devastation, with the death toll following the two earthquakes currently standing at over 41,000 and expected to rise far higher.
In Turkey's Kahramanmaras province, a 17-year old girl was rescued from the rubble 248 hours after the first earthquake hit, according to state broadcaster TRT Haber.
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Turkey earthquake: Teenage boy and girl saved from rubble as rescues continue
The president of the Chamber of Environmental Engineers, Ahmet Kahraman, speaking to Turkish media outlets has warned about the potentially hazardous chemicals that are lurking amidst the rubble in the earthquake-affected areas.
"Asbestos from the demolished buildings poses a risk. Implementing the procedures at this stage, while thousands of our citizens are under the rubble, extends the time that measures should be taken,” said Kahraman speaking to local media.
Many older buildings were built with material that includes asbestos and these make up the bulk of those that collapsed. With thousands of workers, volunteers, and citizens still in the vicinity of the rubble, prolonged exposure may result in health complications.
Asbestos was used extensively in home construction up until the 1970s as a highly effective and inexpensive fire-retardant material and thermal and acoustic insulator.
Studies have shown that prolonged exposure to asbestos can lead to lung disease and even cancer.
The death toll from last week's powerful earthquakes in southern Turkey has risen to at least 36,187, according to the country's disaster emergency agency, Afad.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that 35,418 people were killed in the 7.8 magnitude quake that struck near the southeastern city of Kahramanmaras on 6 February, making it the deadliest earthquake in Turkish history.
The earthquake, which Erdogan called “the disaster of the century”, destroyed tens of thousands of buildings and rendered an equal number uninhabitable.
The potential economic impact of the earthquake in Turkey could result in a loss of up to one percent of the country's gross domestic product this year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said in a report published on Thursday.
The bank added this is a "reasonable estimate" due to the expected boost from reconstruction efforts later this year, which will offset the negative impact to infrastructure and supply chains.
GDP growth in Turkey slowed significantly in 2022 and is expected to fall further, to three per cent in 2023 and 2024 said the EBRD report.
The report also added that growing external financing requirements and political uncertainty associated with the upcoming elections created significant economic vulnerabilities.
Turkish police said they have arrested 78 people accused of creating fear and panic by "sharing provocative posts" about last week's earthquake on social media, adding 20 of them were being held in pre-trial detention.
Turkey's General Directorate of Security said it had identified 613 people accused of making provocative posts, and legal proceedings had been initiated against 293. Of this group, the chief prosecutor had ordered the arrest of 78.
The directorate added that 46 websites were shut down for running "phishing scams" that were trying to steal donations for quake victims, and 15 social media accounts posing as official institutions had also been closed.
A makeshift heating stove exploded while the Turkish health minister, Fahrettin Koca, was meeting with health personnel in Hatay, one of the worst affected areas by the earthquake.
There were no reported injuries.
The acrid smell of smoke from hundreds of fires used to keep survivors warm has filled Malatya's air.
Looking around, families are standing amid towering piles of rubble that were once their homes, determined to find their loved ones buried below.
Some hack away at the debris for hours on end, in the hope they may find someone still alive.
Others stand at the roadside, with concern and anxiety clearly etched on their faces.
This southern Turkish city, which once boasted a population of more than 500,000 people, has been destroyed beyond recognition since last week's devastating 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes.
Scores of buildings were reduced to rubble in downtown Malatya on 6 February, in the deadliest natural disaster to strike Turkey in its modern history.
Turkey earthquake: Lack of clean water and toilets puts survivors at risk of disease
Hello readers. As we approach the 11th day since the earthquakes first hit, the devastating aftermath is becoming evermore present.
The death toll has topped 41,000 in both Turkey and Syria and is expected to rise further. And the tens of thousands of survivors face a long road to recovery, with international aid continuing to pour in.
Northwest Syria is of most concern to aid organisations, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) noting that assistance to the region has been limited over the past week.
"The impact of the earthquake in areas of Syria controlled by the government is significant, but the services are there and there is access to those people. We have to remember here that in Syria, we've had ten years of war. The health system is amazingly fragile. People have been through hell," said WHO's emergencies director Mike Ryan.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is travelling to Germany, Greece, and also Turkey where he will look over Washington's emergency assistance to the country.
Following a similar move made by the US last week, the UK announced that it would be issuing licences that would exempt humanitarian aid from being subject to its sanctions on Syria.
In many cities hit by the earthquakes, residents are now worried about another problem: disease. The lack of clean water, toilets, and showers is causing many to fear being exposed to viruses coming from a lack of hygienic conditions.
MEE is pausing its coverage for now, but will pick back up soon. To stay updated with the latest news on the earthquakes, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
A new fundraising drive for earthquake victims in Turkey raised almost 100 billion Turkish liras ($5.3bn) within two hours of the campaign’s start on Wednesday.
Companies, institutions, organisations, and individuals made donations to the campaign, named Turkiye One Heart, via a joint live broadcast through 200 television and 500 radio channels.
Popular TV stars from different channels urged the public to make donations to the Turkish disaster management agency Afad and the Turkish Red Crescent.
Turkey earthquake aid campaign raises over $5bn
