by Kemal Aslan, Maya Gebeily and Khalil Ashawi
ANTAKYA, TURKEY/JANDARIS, SYRIA (Reuters) – The death toll from Monday’s strong earthquakes in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria has now exceeded 24,150, authorities said on Saturday, while in Turkey , rescuers were able to pull two women alive from the rubble of collapsed buildings 122 hours after the tragedy.
Search and rescue operations are still continuing, especially in Turkey where the death toll for this country alone rose to 20,665 on Saturday. Under fire from criticism for the management of the disaster, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted on Friday that the authorities should have reacted more quickly.
In Turkey, Menekse Tabak, one of the women rescued on Saturday, 70, was draped in a blanket as rescuers carried her to an ambulance in Kahramanmaras province, Turkish News Agency footage shows. Anadolu.
The other survivor, aged 55 and identified as Masallah Cicek, was extracted from the debris of a collapsed building in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey, the agency said.
A total of 67 people have been rescued from the rubble in the past 24 hours, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay told reporters overnight.
About 80,000 people are currently in hospital, while 1.05 million have taken refuge in temporary shelters, he added.
“Our main goal is to get these people back to normal life by providing them with permanent housing within a year, and recovering from their injuries as quickly as possible,” he said. for follow-up.
Many people, however, are still suffering from lack of food in harsh winter conditions despite the dispatch of some 31,000 rescuers to the region as part of the efforts of the international community.
FIRST TRIP OF THE SYRIAN PRESIDENT
In Syria, where the death toll has exceeded 3,500, President Bashar Al Assad made his first trip to the earthquake-affected areas on Friday, including visiting a hospital in Aleppo with his wife Asma, according to Syrian media. ‘State.
Also according to these media, the Syrian government has approved the delivery of humanitarian aid to the front lines, the country has been in civil war for 12 years, which could relieve millions of desperate people, the media added. ‘State.
The World Food Program (WFP), meanwhile, said it was running out of supplies in rebel-held northwestern Syria, as the war in that region complicates relief operations.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Syria and Turkey, which was followed by numerous aftershocks, is considered one of the seven deadliest natural disasters of the century, ahead of the 2011 tsunami in Japan and no longer very far from the 31,000 people killed by an earthquake in Iran in 2003.
A 7.8 earthquake in northwestern Turkey in 1999 killed more than 17,000 people.
(With contributions from Umit Bektas in Antakya, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Ece Toksabay and Huseyin Hayatsever in Adana, Jonathan Spicer, Daren Butler, Yesim Dikmen and Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul; written by Alistair Bell and Clarence Fernandez; French version Claude Chendjou )
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