Erdogan declares emergency as Turkey-Syria quake death toll passes 7,800

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces devastated by two earthquakes that killed more than 7,800 people and left a trail of destruction across a wide area of southern Turkey and neighboring Syria.

According to Press TV, a day after the quakes hit, rescuers working in harsh conditions struggled to dig people out of the rubble of collapsed buildings.

As the scale of the disaster became ever more apparent, the death toll looked likely to rise considerably. One United Nations official said it was feared thousands of children may have been killed.

Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, followed hours later by a second one almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks.

Tens of thousands of people were injured or left homeless in cities in Turkey and northern Syria.

Winter weather has hampered rescue and relief efforts and made the plight of the homeless even more miserable. Some areas were without fuel and electricity.

Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria, already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of war.

Erdogan on Tuesday declared 10 Turkish provinces a disaster zone and imposed a state of emergency there for three months. This will permit the government to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms.

The government will open up hotels in the tourism hub of Antalya to temporarily house people impacted by the quakes, said Erdogan, who faces a national election in three months’ time.

The death toll in Turkey rose to 5,894, Vice President Fuat Oktay said. More than 34,000 were injured. In Syria, the toll was at least 1,932, according to the government and a rescue service in the northwest.

Turkish authorities say some 13.5 million people were affected in an area spanning roughly 450 km (280 miles) from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east, and 300 km from Malatya in the north to Hatay in the south.

Syrian authorities have reported deaths as far south as Hama, some 250 km from the epicenter.

“It’s now a race against time,” World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. “Every minute, every hour that passes, the chances of finding survivors alive diminishes.”

Across the region, rescuers toiled night and day as people waited in anguish by mounds of rubble clinging to the hope that friends, relatives and neighbors might be found alive.

In Antakya, capital of Hatay Province bordering Syria, rescue teams were thin on the ground and residents picked through debris themselves. People pleaded for helmets, hammers, iron rods and rope.

One woman, aged 54 and named Gulumser, was pulled alive from an eight-storey building 32 hours after the quake.

More than 12,000 Turkish search and rescue personnel are working in the affected areas, along with 9,000 troops. Some 70 countries are sending personnel, equipment and aid.

But the sheer scale of the disaster is daunting.

“The area is enormous. I haven’t seen anything like this before,” said Johannes Gust, from Germany’s fire and rescue service, as he loaded equipment onto a truck at Turkey’s Adana airport.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said 5,775 buildings had been destroyed in the quake and that 20,426 people had been injured.

In Geneva, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said: “The earthquakes…may have killed thousands of children.”

‘Terrifying scene’

Syrian refugees in northwest Syria and in Turkey were among the most vulnerable people affected, Elder said.

In the Syrian city of Hama, Abdallah al Dahan said funerals for several families were taking place on Tuesday.

“It’s a terrifying scene in every sense,” said Dahan, contacted by phone. “In my whole life I haven’t seen anything like this, despite everything that has happened to us.”

Mosques opened their doors to families whose homes were damaged.

Time was running out to save hundreds of families trapped under the rubble of buildings and urgent help is needed from international groups, he said.

A UN humanitarian official in Syria said fuel shortages and the harsh weather were creating obstacles.

“The infrastructure is damaged, the roads that we want to use for humanitarian work are damaged,” UN Resident Coordinator El-Mostafa Benlamlih told Reuters from Damascus.