The Sheer Scale of the Tragedy

“We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria."

“They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived."

"My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can."

Martin Griffiths, UN relief chief

 

"We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and caused deaths and injuries."

Turkey’s vice-president, Fuat Oktay

Collapsed buildings in Antakya, Turkey. Photograph: Hassan Ayadi/AFP/Getty Images

The disastrous earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria has brought out the best and the worst in both people and their national representatives. The international community responded quickly, almost 30 countries sent search-and-rescue teams in a desperate bid to save as many people as possible, trapped under the rubble of thousands of collapsed buildings in towns and cities all over northeast Turkey and across the border into Syria where 4 million Syrians, displaced in the ongoing civil war sought refuge in a crowded area with only one cross-border site, blocked by Russia.

 

In Syria, the White Helmet rescue group did their best with inadequate, basic tools to try to extract as many still-living people trapped and crying for help. UN aid trucks finally managed to get through several days following the series of quakes, and to the intense disappointment of the White Helmets no life-saving equipment better than the picks and sledgehammers they were using were made available to them. Hundreds of thousands of quake survivors, now homeless, are sleeping rough, hungry and fearful.

 

 

The Turkish military is still bombing border sites in Syria against the Kurds they mark as terrorists. Military personnel that could more usefully be deployed to rescue missions in both countries. The governments of both countries are facing accusations from their populations of a tardy, insufficient response to the urgency of the tragedy. President Erdogan's popularity has taken a tumble and like most autocrats looking to place blame has started legal action against building contractors, holding them responsible for poor construction.

 

Over 100 arrest warrants resoectung collapsed buildings have been issued by Turkish authorities amid warnings that the death toll from the earthquake that struck parts of Turkey and Syria could double from the current total of 33,000.  A dozen people are in custody; contractors, architects and engineers with links to some of the tens of thousands of buildings collapsed or seriously damaged in the 7.8- and following 7.6-magnitude quakes.

Rescuers carry 12-year-old Cudie from the rubble of a collapsed building, in Hatay, southern Turkey, 147 hours after the quake    EPA

Rescue teams from Austria and Germany withdrew temporarily to a base camp used by international volunteers, citing the dangers they've come across from firepower in the conflict between Turkey and Kurdish militias. Not far from the search-and-rescue areas, there was an attack on civilians, leaving 11 dead, at the hands of Islamic State terrorists. Because of threats, one of the Israeli search-and-rescue teams was forced to withdraw.

Beside collapsed buildings, others standing whole are experiencing looting. Some stores have begun to empty their shops of merchandise to keep them from being looted. Contrast that behaviour with that of desperate bystanders using their bare hands in the first three days after the tremblors to try to rescue trapped victims under steel and concrete.  In Hatay province several days ago rescuers crouched under concrete slabs as they carefully reached into the rubble to rescue a ten-day-old newborn. His mother, also alive, they were carried to a field hospital.

This is winter, extreme cold and snow blankets the area. People trapped under the collapsed buildings would die from exposure as much as from their wounds. Those too exhausted and in pain to continue calling for  help, would never see help arrive. In time their bodies would be exhumed and they would be identified, and buried. Miraculous recoveries of victims were still sporadically taking place days after the initial earthquake, but hope of finding more diminished as time consumed hope.

Now, attention turns to the struggle of survivors, homeless and traumatized, trying to maintain body heat in the winter weather, looking for food and water. "Especially in this cold, it is not possible to live here. If people haven't died from being stuck under the rubble, they'll die from the cold", said survivor Ahmet Tokgoz, calling for his government to evacuate people from the Turkish city of Antakya. Chances of finding anyone else yet alive are fast dwindling.

Winter weather, road and airport runway damage all conspired to hamper emergency responses. Both governments will have much to answer for; the Syrian regime in its fracturing of the country, the plight of the millions of Syrians who fled government attacks on its citizens whom Bashar al Assad called terrorists, and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the lacklustre response to the catastrophe that struck his country."Such things have always happened," he said. "It's part of destiny's plan."