I’m Helen Sullivan and if you’re just joining us, here is where things stand at the moment. If you’d like to get in touch, you can find me here.
- The latest death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake has passed 7,900. On Wednesday morning, Syria’s White Helmets say that the death toll in rebel-held northwest Syria stood at 1,220. With the 812 people confirmed dead in government-held areas, this brings the total known toll in Syria to 2032. At least 5,894 have died in Turkey, bringing the overall lives lost in both countries so far to 7,926. The numbers are expected to increase “significantly”, the White Helmets said.
- More than 8,000 people so far have been pulled from the debris in Turkey, said the Turkish vice-president, Fuat Oktay. About 380,000 people have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, with others huddling in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.
- On Tuesday afternoon, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an declared a disaster zone in the 10 provinces affected by the earthquakes, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.
- Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed. Turkey’s ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation.
- Turkey has deployed more than 24,400 search and rescue personnel to the quake area. The number of personnel was expected to rise, disaster management agency official Orhan Tatar said.
- Three British nationals are missing after the earthquake, the UK’s foreign secretary said on Tuesday. “We assess that the likelihood of large-scale British casualties remains low,” James Cleverly said
This account of the earthquake from Syria, relayed to my colleague Mostafa Rachwani by Mohamad Kazmooz, is worth reading in full. Here is how it begins:
For the past two days, I have lived what has felt like an impossible nightmare.
At 4am on Monday, at our home in Idlib in north-west Syria, we were violently shaken awake by an extremely powerful earthquake.
It was a terror unlike any that I can describe, our home was shaking, our belongings were being tossed to the ground, screens were falling and shattering, pieces of the walls and chunks of the building collapsed.
In that moment, I did not think we would survive. I live with my wife and parents, and we were all violently woken up by this nightmare.
China’s earthquake rescue team, which has arrived in Turkey, is comprised of 82 members, brought 20 tonnes of medical and other rescue supplies and equipment, as well as four search-and-rescue dogs, according to CCTV.
The team will cooperate with the local government, the embassy in Turkey, the United Nations and other agencies on missions, including setting up a temporary command, carrying out personnel search and rescue and providing medical aid, CCTV said.
Separately, civil society rescue teams with at least 52 members from several provinces in China including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Guangdong are heading to the earthquake-stricken areas in Turkey to carry out the rescue work, CCTV reported.
China has already committed to give a first tranche of 40 million yuan ($5.9 million) in emergency aid to Turkey.
These satellite images released by Maxar Technologies give an idea of the scale of the challenge for emergency crews over the coming days. They show in vivid detail the breadth of the destruction that has unfolded in towns, cities and villages across the region:
A woman named Nurgul Atay told the Associated Press she could hear her mother’s voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province. But rescuers did not have the heavy equipment needed to rescue her.
“If only we could lift the concrete slab, we’d be able to reach her,” she said. “My mother is 70 years old, she won’t be able to withstand this for long.”
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 1,647 people were killed in Hatay alone, the highest toll of any Turkish province. At least 1,846 people had been rescued there as of Tuesday evening, he said. Hatay’s airport was closed after the quake destroyed the runway, complicating rescue efforts.
“People revolted (on Tuesday) morning. The police had to intervene,” a man named Celal Deniz, 61, told AFP in Gaziantep. His brother and nephews remain trapped under rubble.
“Where have all our taxes gone, collected since 1999?”
He was referring to a levy dubbed “the earthquake tax” that was implemented after a massive earthquake destroyed large parts of northwestern Turkey and killed 17,400 people,
The revenues – now estimated to be worth 88bn liras, or $4.6bn – were meant to have been spent on disaster prevention and the development of emergency services.
But how this money was actually spent is not publicly known.
If there aren’t enough rescuers, volunteers say they will have to step in and do the hard work themselves.
Here is another scene reported by AFP, showing people’s anger at how long it has taken rescue teams to arrive:
With every passing moment, Ebru Firat knows the chances dim of finding her cousin alive under the rubble of a flattened building in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep.
And with that fading hope, the 23-year-old’s grief is being replaced by rage at the government’s earthquake response.
“I have no more tears left to cry,” she said.
Despite the importance of every minute, no rescue team arrived at the scene in the critical first 12 hours after the disaster, forcing victims’ relatives and local police to clear the ruins by hand, witnesses said.
And when the rescuers finally came on Monday evening, they only worked for a few hours before breaking for the night, residents told AFP.
Syria death toll passes 2,000
Syria’s White Helmets say that the death toll in rebel-held northwest Syria now stands at 1,220, from 1,000 a few hours ago.With the 812 people confirmed dead in government-held areas, this brings the total known toll in Syria to 2032.
At least 5,894 have died in Turkey, bringing the overall lives lost in both countries so far to 7,926.
The numbers are expected to increase “significantly”, the White Helmets said.
On Wednesday, Dave O’Neill, leader of a British emergency service rescue team, told AFP that the coming hours will be “absolutely critical” in the scramble through the quake debris.
“That is why we are so keen to get to work as fast as we can to make the most of the rescue window in front of us,” he said shortly after the 77-person British squad arrived at Gaziantep airport.
The team just wanted to “get out as quickly as possible,” he said.
“We have search teams and dogs. We need to get out there and establish our base and link up with the other teams.”
AFP has this report from Gaziantep’s airport, which has turned into a place for people to sleep amid a flurry of arrivals of rescuers from Turkey and around the world.
Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has warned the next 48 hours would be “crucial” in the hunt for survivors, with temperatures barely above freezing.
With survivors scared to return to their homes after the devastating 7.8 magnitude tremor, the airport has become a refuge for many.
About 100 people wrapped in blankets slept in one lounge of the terminal normally used to welcome Turkish politicians and celebrities.
Local authorities have banned people from staying in apartment blocks because of the many aftershocks hitting the region.
Mustafa Ehianci, a 20-year-old student, was among those huddled in the airport’s VIP lounge, with five other members of his family.
He said he had been asleep when the first tremor hit on Monday.
“It was like a bad dream, a roller coaster,” he recalled.
“We were waiting outside when the second quake struck a few hours later. Now we are all terrified,” Ehianci told AFP.
“We are sleeping here, eating here. We are safe in this area, there is electricity and sewage.
“I don’t know when we will leave.”
An earthquake rescue team dispatched by China’s government arrived in Turkey’s Adana Airport early on Wednesday, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday.
The team, comprised of 82 members, brought 20 tonnes of medical and other rescue supplies and equipment, as well as four search-and-rescue dogs, according to CCTV.
The team will cooperate with the local government, the embassy in Turkey, the United Nations and other agencies on missions, including setting up a temporary command, carrying out personnel search and rescue and providing medical aid, CCTV said.
The United States has announced that it was sending two rescue teams to NATO ally Turkey. Allen said the teams would arrive Wednesday morning and head to the city of Adiyaman, where search efforts have so far been limited.
The teams, coming on two C-130 transport aircraft, are bringing 158 personnel, 12 dogs and 170,000 pounds (77,100 kilograms) of specialized equipment, he said.
“What we’re focused on right now in Turkey is getting those teams out and saving lives, to put it bluntly,” Allen said from Ankara.
“If they need further assistance when it comes to populations who may be without housing or need immediate assistance, we are certainly ready to provide that,” he said.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake has killed more than 7,100 people in the two countries, according to officials and medics.
More now on how the US is approaching aid to Syria, given its refusal to normalise relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or offer any direct reconstruction aid, seeking accountability for abuses during the brutal nearly 12-year civil war.
Assad has wrested back most of the country and over the past year has been restoring relations with other Arab nations as well as Turkey.
Stephen Allen, who is leading the response on the ground for the US Agency for International Development, said that most of the damage was in areas not under Assad’s control and that USAID had local partners there.
USAID is reorienting assistance that was already in place to help war-hit Syrians, instead focusing on rescue efforts and other immediate needs including providing shelter and food, Allen said.
“We’ve got the full gamut of humanitarian response going in northwest Syria right now,” Allen told reporters.
He declined to name the non-governmental groups working with the United States, citing operational security.
US says it is helping Syria but not Assad
The United States said Tuesday it was working with partners to provide earthquake relief in Syria but would stand firm against working with the Damascus government, AFP reports.
The United States also said it expected to send further assistance to Turkey after sending two rescue teams to the NATO ally, which suffered heavily as well in Sunday’s earthquake.
“In Syria itself we have US-funded humanitarian partners that are coordinating lifesaving assistance,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters as he met his Austrian counterpart.
“We’re committed to providing that assistance to help people in Syria recover from this disaster, just as we have been their leading humanitarian donor since the start of the war in Syria itself,” Blinken said.
“I want to emphasize here that these funds, of course, go to the Syrian people — not to the regime. That won’t change.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent condolences to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, citing the North’s state media.
