“Desperate for Assistance: Residents of Turkey’s Earthquake-Stricken Province Plead for Aid”
By Mehmet Emin Caliskan, Ece Toksabay and Huseyin Hayatsever
ANTAKYA, Turkey (Reuters) – “They are making noise but nobody is coming,” Deniz shouted, holding his hands to his head as he railed against the lack of effort to rescue those trapped under the rubble after a powerful earthquake killed thousands had Turkey and Syria.
Desperate cries for help were heard from people trapped in collapsed buildings in the Mediterranean coastal province of Hatay, where people tried to keep warm by bonfires in the cold rainy weather.
Hatay, which borders northwestern Syria, is Turkey’s hardest-hit province, with at least 872 dead. Local residents complained about insufficient emergency response and rescue workers said they were having trouble getting equipment.
Deniz cried as he pointed to a destroyed building where his mother and father were stuck waiting for rescue workers.
“We’re devastated, we’re devastated. My God!” he said. “They call. They say ‘save us’ but we can’t save them. How are we supposed to save them?
Rescue workers are grappling with the extent of destruction in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria, with the total death toll rising to over 5,000 as of Tuesday morning.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said 13,740 search and rescue personnel were deployed to the quake region, but the extent of the damage is huge as nearly 6,000 buildings were destroyed in southern Turkey.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said more than 1,200 buildings were destroyed in Hatay alone.
Rescue teams in the province complained about a lack of equipment, while people on the road stopped cars and asked for tools to clear the debris.
The government issued a “level 4 alert” after the quake, asking for international assistance but not declaring a state of emergency that would lead to a mass mobilization of the military.
In Antakya, the provincial capital of Hatay, where ten-storey buildings had fallen onto the street, Reuters journalists saw rescue work being carried out on one of the dozen piles of rubble.
“There are no emergency services, no soldiers. Nobody. It’s a run-down place,” said a man who traveled to Hatay from Ankara after he pulled a woman out of the rubble of a building on his own.
“This is a human life. What can you do when you hear a sound of life?” said the man, who declined to be named as the woman received medical attention in a car.
The southern province of Hatay is home to more than 400,000 Syrians, mostly refugees from the country’s nearly 12-year civil war, according to Turkey’s Interior Ministry.
(Reporting by Mehmet Emin Caliskan, Ece Toksabay and Huseyin Hayatsever; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans and Arun Koyyur)
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