Aid focus turns to the homeless and destitute in aftermath of Turkey quake

KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey - International aid agencies are stepping up efforts to help millions of homeless people, many sleeping in tents, mosques, schools or cars, 11 days

after a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria,

killing

more than 43,000.

Two more people were pulled alive from the rubble in Turkey on Friday.

A 17-year-old girl was extracted from the ruins of a collapsed apartment block in Turkey’s south-eastern Kahramanmaras province, broadcaster TRT Haber reported, 248 hours since the magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck in the dead of night on Feb 6.

Footage showed her being carried away on a stretcher covered with a thermal blanket while an emergency worker held an intravenous drip.

About 10 hours later, the second person, Ms Neslihan Kilic, was rescued.

“We had prepared her grave and we asked the rescue workers to stop digging as we feared they would damage the remaining corpses under the rubble.

“Moments later, her voice was heard from under the ruins of the building,” Ms Kilic’s brother-in-law told broadcaster CNN Turk.

Ms Kilic’s husband and two children are still missing.

But such rescues have become increasingly rare, leaving anger to smoulder as hope fades following the deadliest earthquake in Turkey’s modern history – a magnitude-7.8 tremor followed by a similarly powerful one hours later.

The quake killed at least 38,044 people in southern Turkey, officials said on Friday, while the authorities in neighbouring Syria have reported 5,800 deaths – a figure that has changed little in days.

The bulk of Syria’s fatalities have been in the north-west, an area controlled by insurgents who are at war with President Bashar al-Assad – a conflict that has complicated efforts to aid people affected by the earthquake.

The sides clashed overnight for the first time since the disaster, with government forces shelling the outskirts of Atareb, a rebel-held town badly hit by the earthquake, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday.

Neither Turkey nor Syria have said how many people are still missing.

Scaling up aid across the border

The United Nations on Thursday appealed for more than US$1 billion (S$1.34 billion) in funds for the Turkish relief operation, just two days after launching a US$400 million appeal for Syrians.

People have been sleeping in tents, mosques, schools or cars across the sprawling disaster zone, enduring freezing winter temperatures.

“We spend our days with bread, soup and meals as part of the aid sent by people. We don’t have a life any more. We are afraid,” said Mr Mustafa Akan in Adiyaman, who sleeps outdoors and stays warm by burning wood in a bucket.

The World Health Organisation has expressed particular concern about the welfare of people in the north-west, where the bulk of fatalities in Syria have been reported.

About 50,000 households in the north-west are estimated to be in need of tents or emergency shelter, according to a survey by non-governmental organisations.

Many people in the region have felt abandoned as aid has poured into other parts of the disaster zone.

Deliveries into the rebel-held region from Turkey were severed completely in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, when a route used by the UN was temporarily blocked.

Earlier this week, Mr Assad gave approval for the use of two more crossings into the north-west.

As at Friday, 142 trucks of UN aid have crossed into the north-west since aid operations resumed on Feb 9, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

“We are definitely scaling up the cross-border aid operation. There is a plan for more trucks to come every day,” the spokesman added.

Many survivors have fled the disaster zones, but some have decided to stay despite the dreadful conditions.

For families still waiting to retrieve relatives, there is growing anger over what they see as corrupt building practices and deeply flawed urban development that resulted in thousands of homes and businesses disintegrating.

“I have two children. No others. They are both under this rubble,” said Ms Sevil Karaabduloglu, as excavators tore down what remained of a high-end block of flats in the southern Turkish city of Antakya, where her two daughters had lived.

About 650 people are believed to have died when the Renaissance Residence collapsed.

“We rented this place as an elite place, a safe place. How do I know that the contractor built it this way?” Ms Karaabduloglu said. “Everyone is looking to make a profit. They are all guilty.”

Some 200km away, about 100 people gathered at a small cemetery in the town of Pazarcik to bury a family of four – Ismail and Selin Yavuzatmaca and their two young daughters – who all died in the Renaissance building.

Turkey has promised to investigate anyone suspected of responsibility for the collapse of buildings, and has ordered the detention of more than 100 suspects, including developers. REUTERS