“There are corpses everywhere”: anguish and little hope in the face of the rubble in Turkey

The situation in 10 Turkish provinces hit by Monday’s devastating earthquakes is getting worse as time goes on, and as the death toll continues to rise, survivors are struggling to meet their most basic needs in freezing weather up to 6 degrees below zero.

So far, Monday’s series of earthquakes has left more than 11,200 dead – more than 8,500 in Turkey alone and another 2,700 in Syria – and more than 40,000 injured. Rescue teams succeeded recover about 8,000 people alive of nearly 6,000 buildings destroyed.

Turkish journalists reporting from the stricken cities of Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Iskenderun and Malatya early Wednesday, more than 48 hours after the quake, agreed that there are hundreds of collapsed buildings where no rescue team has arrived and people are calling for help.

HalkTV reported live from Malatya that there were women, children and elderly survivors terrible conditions, no access to basic necessities and with temperatures several degrees below zero.

voices from the rubble

THE despair grows because in some collapsed buildings the voices of survivors are heard, but you can’t help them due to lack of specialized equipment.

“No one in the city can enter any building due to the danger of collapse. Going to the bathroom, which has been simple up to now, is a very big problem. There is no water at home or at the petrol stations”, explained the journalists of that Channel television. .

“People try to warm up in the car, but can’t fill the tank because no fuel at gas stations,” he adds.

Yildirim Kurt, a farmer from the Nurhak district of Kahramanmaras, one of the hardest hit areas, told EFE by telephone that so far no help had reached his town.

Halk TV reporter Seyhan Asker reported on Wednesday from Islahiye, a Hatay town of 60,000 where his parents lived, “All the houses in the town have to be rebuilt. No one can even live in the houses that have not been destroyed. Half some houses in the city are destroyed.”

Mustafa Kara, who lost his wife in Kahramanmaras in the collapse of a nine-story building, expressed his outrage on Halk TV: “Is this state such a small thing? There is nothing. We cannot bury our dead. There are dead bodies everywhere.”

“More than 900 buildings have collapsed. If everyone has between eight and ten apartments, how many people are under the rubble? There is no electricity, no petrol, people are looting the supermarkets. complained the neighbor.

In Iskenderun, a fire in the port and rising sea levels make it difficult for the wounded to be evacuated by ship to other cities.

criticism of the government

Apparently, a container with chemicals burned immediately after the earthquake and the flames quickly spread to other containers in the port.

Despite the intervention of Army planes and ships, it was not possible to put out the fire and smoking creates respiratory problems in a large area.

While the criticism of the government Due to the lack of timely intervention, the poor management of the crisis and the failure to send the Army in the first moments, the main channels focus on the people rescued alive in the buildings where the relief continues.

Rescue teams rescued a 24-year-old teacher, Mesude Akar, from the rubble of a collapsed building 49 hours after the Hatay earthquake.

An hour before her, two other women were also rescued alive from under the ruins in the same area, Anadolu news agency reported.

The situation of the dams in the region is another cause for concern, as it has been reported cracks in some of them due to tremors.

“We have 110 dams, so far we have completed tests on 90 of them. Because there is a risk in seismic periods,” said Agriculture Minister Vahit Kirisçi.

The panorama drawn by the media on the third day after Monday’s ferocious earthquake, from the cities where the cameras can be seen, was chilling, with hundreds and hundreds of buildings destroyed and towns without any media attention.

Source: EFE