Rescuers continue to search for survivors a week after the earthquake in Turkey and Syria: NPR

[ad_1]

Women sit in front of the rubble of an area destroyed during the earthquake in Antakya, southeast Turkey, Sunday, February 12, 2023. Bernat Armangue/AP hide caption

Caption switch Bernat Armangue / AP

Women sit in front of the rubble of an area destroyed during the earthquake in Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Sunday, February 12, 2023.

Bernat Armanji / Associated Press

ISTANBUL — People buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings in southern Turkey continue to defy the odds, surviving freezing temperatures and a week without water. But the numbers are small, and tired rescue crews know time is running out.

A 40-year-old woman was pulled from the rubble of a five-story building in Reformatory, Gaziantep Province, early Monday. Turkish media reported that another rescue crew, alerted by a search dog, had been in contact with what they believed were three other survivors – a mother, a daughter and a child.

Earlier, 60-year-old Erengul Onder was freed from the rubble in Besni town of Adiyaman province.

Last Monday’s deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake, and the powerful tremors that followed, have killed more than 33,000 people, and experts predict that the total number will surely rise. Homeless families shelter in tents set up by the Turkish Emergency Management Agency (AFAD).

The United Nations in Syria says more than five million people may be without homes after the quake. UN aid coordinator Martin Griffiths said the world had failed the people of northwest Syria, who “rightfully feel abandoned”.

Washington asked the United Nations Security Council for permission to deliver aid into rebel-held territory in Syria through additional border crossings from Turkey.

Across southern Turkey, residents have been forced to flee their cracked and damaged homes to vent their anger at substandard building practices – potentially illegal – which they say have made this disaster much worse than it needs to be.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that no government can be prepared for a disaster of this magnitude, but many are wondering what it will mean for his political future.

[ad_2]