Videos from the Two Main Earthquake stricken spots in Turkey have been shared online, revealing the magnitude of the disaster. The footages show rescuers digging with their hands, apartment blocks collapsing to the ground in seconds, and the shaking apart of a castle that had stood for almost two millennia.
Photo: Curtesy
The series of Earthquakes and aftershocks emerged on Monday, killing at least 5,000 people.
Few images depict the agony quite as plainly as a photograph from the Turkish region of Kahramanmaraş, in which a father holds the hand of his dead teenage daughter as rescuers and civilians pick through the flattened building where she died on Monday.
From 04:17 o monday, Over 13 million people across 10 ccitiesof Turkey have been affected by the biggest quake the country has witnessed since 1939, with the scale of the ddisastere exceeding the nation’s worst nightmare.
Pictures emerging from airports in Istanbul show the desperation amid frustration as claims emerge that the government failed to listened to the warnings of the geology experts.
Photo: Curtesy
Knowing a major quake would hit the country sooner or later, the government is said to have not taken enough precautions to strengthen the buildings, and has been slow in allowing the miners or the troops to take part in the rescue operations.
Timothy Whiting, a 29-year-old from Yorkshire in the UK, who was on holiday in Turkey when the earthquake struck Says he woke to the guest house he was staying in shaking and was “very scared”, but he managed to escape.
“I was on the second floor of a two-storey building, I think that was the lucky thing – there were no floors above us to fall,” he told BBC, narrating how all the other buildings around him had collapsed or been damaged “like a nuclear bomb had gone off”.
“Whole swathes of the city were flattened,” he says. “There were huge five to six storey buildings completely on their side.” He said.
Timothy was staying in the city of Hatay in Antakya, which he left by foot until a car offered him a lift to Adana.
“People were coming out of everywhere, half of them barefoot. It was just complete chaos,” he says.
However, there are so many collapsed buildings where no rescue work is going on at all. It’s impossible to conceive that all of those buildings were empty. Efforts appear to be concentrated on bigger buildings, the ones they think had more people in.
People are silent, dazed by what’s happened. They stand, they light fires to keep warm and they watch these rescues go on. It’s eerily quiet as they listen for any signs of life in the rubble.
“People are still under the [collapsed] buildings, they need help,” BBC Journalist, Ibrahim Haskologlu says.
He added that people are sending him and other journalists videos, voice notes and their live locations from under the rubble.
They’re telling us where they are and “we can’t do anything,” Haskologlu says, adding Turkey needs all the international help it can get.
Detainees Escape From Prison In Syria
A source has told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that at least 20 detainees at a Syrian prison, believed to be jihadists have escaped after the quake damaged the facility.
The prison in the town of Rajo near the Turkish border holds about 2,000 inmates, with about 1,300 of them suspected to be IS fighters, said an official at the jail. It also holds fighters from Kurdish-led forces.
The Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake – which was followed by dozens of aftershocks in the region – caused damage including cracked walls and doors.
“The inmates started to mutiny and took control of parts of the prison.”
“About 20 prisoners fled… who are believed to be Islamic State militants,” the source disclosed.
Heavy Rain Delays Rescue Efforts
After heavy rain and significant snow in southern Turkey and northern Syria, it will generally get drier and sunnier through this week.
Some snow showers are still possible on Tuesday but with colder air digging in, freezing conditions will cause even more concern.
In Gaziantep, where the first quake struck, it will be around 4-6C by day – but plummeting overnight to -7C. It could be as low as -15C in the towns and villages towards the mountains.
It won’t be as cold in Syria, but no more than 10 or 11C by day and -3C by night.
People are having to huddle around makeshift fires on the street, too afraid to go home for fear of another deadly tremor.
Death Toll Continues To Rise
The number of people who’ve died has risen to 3,381, on Tuesday morning according to the country’s disaster authority.
Orhan Tatar, an official at the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), says a further 20,426 have been injured and 5,775 buildings collapsed.
The new count brings the combined death toll in Turkey and neighbouring Syria to 5,000, and the number is likely to keep rising.
