Hope fading as deaths in Turkey, Syria quake pass 11,000
Source: AP
GAZIANTEP, Turkey (AP) With hope fading to find survivors, stretched rescue teams toiled through the night in Turkey and Syria, searching for signs of life in the rubble of thousands of buildings toppled by a catastrophic earthquake. The death toll rose Wednesday to more than 11,000 in the deadliest quake worldwide in more than a decade.
Amid calls for the Turkish government to send more help to the disaster zone, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan toured a tent city in Kahramanmaras where people forced from their homes are living. He conceded shortfalls early on in the response but vowed that no one would be left in the streets.
Search teams from more than two dozen countries have joined tens of thousands of local emergency personnel, and aid pledges have poured in from around the world. But the scale of destruction from the 7.8 magnitude quake and its powerful aftershocks was so immense and spread so wide, including in areas isolated by Syrias ongoing civil war that many are still waiting for help.
In the Turkish city of Malatya, bodies were placed side by side on the ground, covered in blankets, while rescuers waited for funeral vehicles to pick them up, according to former journalist Ozel Pikal who saw eight bodies pulled from the ruins of building. Pikal, who took part in the rescue efforts, said he believes at least some of the victims may have frozen to death as temperatures dipped to minus 6 degrees Celsius (21 Fahrenheit).
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/science-turkey-syria-earthquakes-8fc4e52f5f261edce7b05d0b06601d3a
Samrob
(4,298 posts)The poor are always hit the hardest.
hlthe2b
(102,279 posts)THe cruelest fate...
calimary
(81,267 posts)The death toll is so horribly high. And probably still climbing.
2naSalit
(86,630 posts)hlthe2b
(102,279 posts)I got to meet some of the "rescue/cadaver" dogs that LA County and some of the other elite search and rescue teams use. A few of them develop the canine equivalent of PTSD after searching for days in some of these disasters and finding nothing but dead bodies. They truly do manifest some severely depressive symptoms and many must be retired thereafter unless they are able to get them to a near-immediate event where they DO successfully find survivors. True of our Colorado avalanche search and rescue dogs too. No less trauma than the human workers, certainly, but that just touches my heart in a way that is unmatched.