A day of many rescues on Monday but the toll after the earthquake in Turkey and Syria will still rise
Turkish rescue workers from Kazakhstan and Turkey rescued Hatice Akar from a collapsed building 180 hours after the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey Monday. Pic/AP
Rescuers pulled a 13-year-old from under the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey’s southern Hatay province on Monday, more than a week after a devastating earthquake struck. The teenager held a rescuer’s hand as he was placed on a stretcher, before he was moved into an ambulance.
A young girl named Miray was also rescued from the rubble of an apartment block in Adiyaman on Monday, 178 hours after the earthquake, a minister and media reports said. Broadcaster CNN Turk said the girl was six years old and rescuers were reaching her older sister.
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Rescue teams from Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus also pulled a man alive from a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, Turkey on Sunday, 160 hours after the earthquake struck, Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said. Rescue workers also made contact on Monday with three survivors, believed to be a mother, daughter and baby, in the ruins of a building. CNN Turk reported that rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble of a building in Turkey on Monday. The deadliest quake in Turkey since 1939 has killed 31,643 people there, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said. More than 4,300 people were reported dead and 7,600 injured in northwest Syria as of Sunday, said a U.N. agency.
Also Read: This infant survived 5 days in the rubble!
Turkish authorities are targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed in the February 6 earthquakes. The death toll from the magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes that struck nine hours apart in Turkey and Syria was certain to increase.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 131 people were under investigation for their alleged responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the quakes. Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for multiplying the devastation. Turkey’s construction codes meet current earthquake-engineering standards, at least on paper, but are rarely enforced. The earthquake could cost Ankara up to $84.1 billion, a business group said, while a government official put the figure at more than $50 billion.
In Syria, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said the international community has failed to provide aid. Visiting the Turkish-Syrian border Sunday, Griffiths said, “We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. “My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”
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