The balance sheet continues to rise. According to the latest official figures, the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday February 6 killed at least 30,000 people. The earthquake caused the death of 29,605 people in southern Turkey, according to the Turkish public body for disaster management (Afad), while the authorities have counted 3,574 dead in Syria. Visiting Kahramanmaras (Turkey) on Saturday, the head of the UN humanitarian agency, Martin Griffiths, had earlier mentioned a death toll of more than 28,000 and told Sky News that it could “double”. “We haven’t really started counting the number of dead yet”he said. Follow our live.
Twenty-six million people potentially affected. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 26 million people may have been affected by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, including “about five million vulnerable people”. The UN health agency is making an urgent appeal to raise $42.8 million.
A baby brought out alive from the rubble. In a video shared by Turkey’s Anadolu agency on Twitter, a 13-year-old girl is pulled from the rubble in Gaziantep on Sunday before dawn, well after the 72-hour period considered crucial. In the province of Hatay, a seven-month-old boy, Hamza, was also found alive, curled up under a slab where he spent more than 140 hours. A two-year-old girl, Asya, was rescued in the same area. Operating in freezing cold, rescuers also pulled a 70-year-old woman alive from the rubble in Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province.
Difficulties in delivering aid to Syria. In Syria, the sanctions adopted against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad complicate an already “very volatile” in areas where the UN says 5.3 million people are at risk of homelessness. For the time being, most of the humanitarian aid intended for the Syrian victims, largely located in the territories held by the rebels, arrives from Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa crossing point.
Tens of thousands of rescuers. Nearly 32,000 people are mobilized for search and rescue operations in Turkey, as well as more than 8,000 foreign rescuers according to the Turkish agency responsible for natural disasters. On Saturday, a crossing point was opened between Turkey and Armenia, for the first time in 35 years, to allow the arrival of humanitarian aid.