2 weeks after the earthquake disaster: Search is halted Swiss rescue workers in Turkey: “The gratitude of the people is enormous”

The search for victims will only continue in Kahramanmaras and Hatay provinces, Afad chairman Yunus Sezer told journalists in Ankara on Sunday. In total, nearly 47,000 deaths have now been recorded, more than 41,000 in Turkey alone. But even though the Turkish media often refer to it as the “disaster of the century”, its true scale only gradually becomes clear.

In Syria alone, 8.8 million people have been affected, UN Deputy Representative for Syria Najat Rochdi wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Afad leader Yunus Sezer estimated that more than 1.2 million people have fled the stricken region of Turkey. More than a million people are currently in emergency shelters. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that the US government would increase earthquake aid to Turkey and Syria by an additional $100 million (about $93 million) to a total of $185 million.

Aich NATO is involved in the relief effort and is preparing to set up an emergency camp for at least 4,000 people in Turkey. An alliance spokesman said a cargo ship carrying 600 containers left the port of the Italian city of Taranto on Sunday evening. It should arrive in the Turkish city of Iskenderun within a week. According to its own statements, NATO is also currently coordinating an airlift for the transport of tents from Pakistan to Turkey.

In addition to the existential distress and the grief for deceased relatives, it is also the fear of the next earthquake that causes problems for those affected. In total, more than 6,000 aftershocks were recorded within 13 days of the quake, the civil protection agency Afad said on Sunday. That is the number that would normally be counted in four months.

A look at the bare numbers shows how extraordinarily large the affected earthquake area is in Turkey alone: ​​according to information from the Ministry of Forestry, the affected area covers an area of ​​103,000 square kilometers and has a population of 13.5 million people. . This corresponds to 17 percent of the total population of Turkey.

In the civil war country of Syria, the situation was already devastating for many people even before the earthquake. According to the UN, more than 15 million people previously needed some form of assistance.

And some two weeks after the quakes, not everyone in northwestern Syria has received emergency aid. “We are still at the beginning and have not seen the worst,” said the dpa’s UN emergency coordinator Muhannad Hadi, responsible for Syria.

More than 140 trucks carrying UN relief supplies have traveled from Turkey to rebel-held northwestern Syria since the disaster. There, more than 9,000 buildings were completely or partially destroyed and at least 11,000 people lost their homes.

On the morning of February 6, a magnitude 7.7 quake shook southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, followed hours later by a second severe quake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale. (sda/dpa)