The first teams of foreign rescuers arrived on Tuesday, after the violent earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday. According to the Turkish president, who declared a state of emergency for three months in the ten provinces affected by the earthquake, 45 countries offered their help. The European Union has mobilized 1,185 rescue workers and 79 search dogs for Turkey from 19 Member States, including France, Germany and Greece. US President Joe Biden promised his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan “all the help needed, whatever it is”. Two teams of rescuers are due to arrive on the morning of Wednesday February 8 in Turkey.
The human toll continues to grow. Afad, the official Turkish relief organization, now reports more than 6,200 dead in the country. In Syria, more than 2,400 people have lost their lives, according to the latest official toll, bringing the total deaths in the two affected countries to more than 8,700. “Event maps show that 23 million people are potentially exposed, including around 5 million vulnerable people”, said a World Health Organization official on Tuesday. The WHO pledges its long-term support after the dispatch of emergency aid.
Humanitarian aid to Syria affected. The only crossing point for humanitarian aid to the rebel zone of the country from Turkey was affected by the earthquake, according to the UN. She promised assistance for “to all Syrians throughout the territory”. Russia, an ally of dictator Bashar Al-Assad, responded to the regime’s call for help. According to the army, more than 300 Russian soldiers are already on the scene to help the relief. The EU works with its humanitarian partners and funds aid operations in the country. Finally, Washington said on Tuesday it was working with local NGOs, insisting that its “funds will of course go to the Syrian people, not to the regime” damask.
A huge fire still in progress Tuesday evening. The fire spread to dozens of containers during the day in the port of Iskenderun, in southern Turkey, near the Syrian border. The disaster began late Monday afternoon and has been raging ever since: it apparently started when one of the containers overturned on the others under the effect of one of the many aftershocks of the initial earthquake.
Research continues. On both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border, we are working to try to save lives. In Jandairis, on the Syrian side, a newborn baby was brought out alive from the rubble. This little girl was still connected by the umbilical cord to her mother, who died like all the other members of the family. In Kahramanmaras, in southern Turkey, residents are desperate for help. No help had arrived Tuesday in this devastated city of more than a million inhabitants, buried under the snow.
Several archaeological sites affected in Syria. In particular the citadel of Aleppo, an architectural jewel of the medieval era, and its old town, classified in 2018 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in danger, after years of civil war.