admin
ANKARA. – Rescuers in Türkiye have pulled more people from the rubble of last week’s earthquakes, but hopes were fading in Türkiye and Syria that many more survivors would be found.
UN relief chief Martin Griffiths has said he expects the death toll to at least reach 50 000, after he arrived in southern Türkiye on Saturday to assess the quake’s damage.
The combined death toll in Türkiye and Syria from last Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake approached 36 000 and looked set to rise, as the focus of the response switched from rescuing survivors trapped under the rubble to providing shelter, food and psychosocial care.
Between yesterday and Saturday, the area experienced more than 2 000 aftershocks, according to Turkey’s AFAD disaster authority.
A report published at the weekend by the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation put the cost of the damage at US$84.1 billion – US$70.8 billion from the repair of thousands of homes, US$10.4 billion from loss of national income and US$2.9 billion from loss of working days.
It said the main costs would be rebuilding housing, transmission lines and infrastructure, and meeting the short, medium and long-term shelter needs of the hundreds of thousands left homeless.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said the state will complete housing reconstruction within a year and the government was preparing a programme to “make the country stand up again”.
Some 13.4 million people live in the 10 provinces by hit by the quake, or 15 percent of Turkey’s population.
The earthquake’s impact on gross domestic product is unlikely to be as pronounced as after the 1999 earthquake in northwest Turkey, which struck the industrial heartland, IMF executive director Mahmoud Mohieldin said on the sidelines of the Arab Fiscal Forum on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a young girl has been saved from the rubble of a block of flats in southern Türkiye, more than a week after the devastating earthquake struck.
Miray had been trapped in the ruins for 178 hours – seven-and-a-half days. Video showed workers cheering and shouting “God is great” as she was lifted out of the darkness.
Several others were saved yesterday, including a 13-year-old boy trapped for 182 hours. But rescues are becoming rarer as the death toll passes 36 000.
This is partly due to limits on how long the human body can survive without water.
Other factors include how much space the trapped person has to breathe and how bad their injuries are, an emergency medicine specialist told the BBC.
Prof Tony Redmond also said the cold temperatures in Turkey and Syria were a double-edged sword.
In hard-hit Hatay province, 13-year-old Kaan was rescued after being trapped for 182 hours – as well as a woman called Naide Umay, found alive after 175 hours.
In the city of Kahramanmaras, rescue workers had made contact with a grandmother, mother and baby – all stuck, but alive – and were working to reach them.– Agencies
Online Reporter