The death toll from an earthquake that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria surpassed 41,000 on Friday as the United Nations appealed for $1 billion to help the growing humanitarian crisis.
Eleven days after the quake — now one of the 10 deadliest in the past 100 years — Turkish rescuers pulled a 17-year-old girl and a woman in her 20s from the rubble.
“She seemed to be in good health. She opened and closed her eyes,” said coal miner Ali Akdogan after participating in the rescue of Elena Olms in Kahramanmaras, a town near the epicenter.
But hopes of finding survivors are largely lost.
Many people in the affected areas are facing a dire emergency as they try to pick up the pieces in freezing conditions without food, water or sanitation – raising the prospect of further devastation from disease.
“The needs are great, people are suffering and there is no time to lose,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement, calling for funds to help victims.
He said that these donations will provide humanitarian assistance to 5.2 million people for three months.
The money will “allow aid organizations to rapidly scale up critical assistance, including in the areas of food security, security, education, water and shelter,” he added.
“I urge the international community to fully fund this critical effort in response to one of the greatest natural disasters of our time.”
By Day 3 ‘she was dead’
Officials and medical experts said the Feb. 6 earthquake killed 38,044 people in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria, bringing the confirmed total to 41,732.
The quake — in one of the world’s most active seismic zones — hit populated areas as many people slept in homes not built to withstand such powerful ground vibrations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pushed back hard against accusations that his government has failed to respond to the country’s deadliest natural disaster in modern times.
For every miraculous story of survival, there are faint tales of hopes of saving loved ones who slowly died in the wreckage.
Hassan Armik found five family members — including his six-year-old daughter Belinda — buried under his terraced house in the Syrian border town of Samandag.
“She lived for two days,” the 57-year-old said of her daughter.
“I was talking to her in the ruins. Then all her energy was gone. On the third day she was dead. On the fourth day help arrived.”
Turkey has suspended aid operations in some areas and government-controlled areas in war-torn Syria have also suspended aid.
The Red Cross on Thursday tripled its emergency funding appeal to $700 million.
The situation in rebel-held northwest Syria is particularly dire, with aid trickling in to a region ravaged by years of conflict.
“There is no electricity, no water, no sanitation,” Abdurrahman Haji Ahmad told JEE News in Janderes, on the Turkish border, behind his destroyed former home.
“The lives of all families are tragic.”
