Rescuers pulled children alive Friday from the rubble of the Turkey-Syria earthquake as the toll surpassed 22,000 and bitter cold compounded the suffering of the homeless, Agence France-Presse reported. In the Turkish city of Kahramanmaraş, one of those hit hardest by the region’s worst earthquake in nearly a century, the stench of death clung to the air. But as crews entered a fifth day of peeling back flattened buildings, Turkish media reported rescues of young children, long after the expiration of the 72-hour window when survivors are considered most likely to be found. In the 105th hour, rescuers pulled 18-month-old Yusuf Hüseyin from the debris in the southeastern city of Antakya. Twenty minutes later, they rescued seven-year-old Muhammed Hüseyin, NTV news channel reported. Three-year-old Zeynep Ela Parlak was also rescued in Antakya on Friday, while in Adıyaman province, rescuers saved a 60-year-old Eyüp Ak and in Gaziantep, two people were pulled out alive including a child whose age was not known. “Half an hour ago, we managed to rescue two living people out of the rubble,” the Czech fire service tweeted Friday of their teams in southeastern Turkey’s Adıyaman. On Thursday, rescuers pulled a 10-day-old baby and his mother out alive after 90 hours trapped in hard-hit Hatay province, Turkish officials said.
The baby boy named Yağız Ulaş was swiftly wrapped in a thermal blanket. Turkey’s miners, expert in rescuing their own colleagues, told how they rushed to help people trapped by Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake. “Our hearts couldn’t take this,” said miner İsmail Hakki Kalkan.
Yet the bodies of seven Cypriot children, as well as two teachers and a parent killed by the earthquake in Adıyaman were flown home on Friday, with Turkish media reporting that 19 children in the group died. Two dozen children aged 11 to 14 from the island, along with 10 parents, four teachers and a volleyball coach, were in Turkey for a school tournament and had been staying in a hotel that was destroyed. In a region home to many displaced and traumatized by Syria’s civil war, worries were growing over the many people left without shelter amid freezing temperatures. UN aid and rescue teams have arrived, while the US Agency for International Development offered a $85-million package including food, shelter and emergency health services. World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths have both announced upcoming visits. “As this tragic event unfolds, people’s desperate plight must be addressed,” said the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, who travelled to quake-hit Aleppo in Syria.
The first aid deliveries to rebel-held northwestern Syria since the quake arrived on Thursday, an official at the Bab al-Hawa crossing told AFP. A decade of civil war and Syrian-Russian aerial bombardment had already destroyed hospitals, collapsed the economy and prompted electricity, fuel and water shortages.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council to authorize the opening of new cross-border humanitarian aid points between Turkey and Syria. “This is the moment of unity, it’s not a moment to politicize or to divide but it is obvious that we need massive support,” Guterres said. Temperatures in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, located near the epicenter of the quake, plunged to minus three degrees Celsius (26 degrees Fahrenheit) early Friday. Despite the cold, thousands of families have been living in cars and makeshift tents — too scared or banned from returning to their homes. Gyms, mosques, schools and some stores have opened at night. But beds are scarce, and thousands spend the nights in cars with engines running to provide heat. Monday’s quake was the largest Turkey has seen since 1939, when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province. Officials and medics said 18,991 people had died in Turkey and 3,377 in Syria from Monday’s tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 22,368. Experts fear the number will continue to rise.
