The death toll from the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday has risen to 22,000, making it the deadliest seismic event in over a decade.
Rescue teams are continuing to search for survivors trapped in the rubble as the death toll rises, and miraculous videos of children being found alive and pulled from the wreckage have emerged.
However, hope is fading for those still missing, and the cold weather is making rescue and relief efforts even more difficult. In addition to the fatalities, the WHO estimates that up to 23 million people could be affected by the quake.
On Wednesday, a man named Abdulalim Muaini was rescued in the Turkish city of Hatay after being buried alive beside his dead wife and two daughters for 48 hours. Pictures from the scene of the rescue showed Muaini wedged between a fallen concrete slab, the floor, and his wife’s lifeless body.
Rescuers in Turkey and Syria have also pulled a 3-year-old boy, Arif Kaan, from beneath the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Kahramanmaras and a 10-year-old Betul Edis from the rubble of her home in the city of Adiyaman.
The tragedy is compounded by images of grieving relatives, such as Mesut Hancer, who was pictured sitting on the freezing rubble, too grief-stricken to speak, refusing to let go of his 15-year-old daughter Irmak’s hand as her body lay lifeless.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared a three-month state of emergency in 10 southeastern provinces and promised to rebuild the damaged regions within a year.
Dozens of nations, including the US, China, and the Gulf States, have pledged to help, and search teams and relief supplies have begun to arrive by air.
However, many survivors have not yet returned to their homes out of fear they could collapse at any moment, with people choosing instead to sleep in their cars. Frustration is growing that help has been slow to arrive, and the WHO has warned that time is running out for the thousands injured and those still feared trapped.
On Tuesday, aerial images showed mass graves being dug in Syria’s Aleppo province, while in Gaziantep, AFP correspondents reported seeing green metal coffins lined up in rows of ten at a time under a shelter at the city’s main cemetery.
The Turkey-Syria border is one of the world’s most active earthquake zones, and experts have long warned a large quake could devastate Istanbul, a megalopolis of 16 million people filled with rickety homes.
For now, the death toll from the earthquake continues to climb, and the search for survivors continues.
