The balance sheet continues to rise. According to the latest official figures, the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria left at least 28,191 people dead. Visiting Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on Saturday February 11, the head of the UN humanitarian agency, Martin Griffiths, told Sky News that the toll could “double”. “We haven’t really started counting the number of dead yet”he said. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 26 million people may have been affected in Turkey and Syria, including “about five million vulnerable people”, and launched an urgent appeal on Saturday to raise $42.8 million. Follow our live.
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.