The confirmed death toll from the deadliest earthquake in the region in two decades stood at nearly 23,000 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria four days after it hit. Hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in bone-chilling winter conditions and leaders in both countries have faced questions about their response.
Five days of grief and anguish have been slowly building into a rage at the Turkish government’s response in the face of the country’s most dire disaster in nearly a century.
Turkey-Syria earthquakes: Here are top 10 updates
1. Rescuers pulled out children on Friday from the rubble of the Turkey-Syria earthquake. Turkish television showed rescuers pulling out a family of four – a mother and her three children – from the pile of rubble 108 hours after the disaster in the Syria-border province of Hatay.
2. Rescuers pulled a woman alive out of the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey, prompting cheers from onlookers 104 hours.
3. The United Nations warned that 874,000 people were now in urgent need of hot meals across Turkey and Syria.
4. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan conceded for the first time on Friday that his government was not able to reach and help the victims “as quickly as we had desired”.
5. Three-year-old Zeynep Ela Parlak was also rescued in Hatay on Friday. Rescuers pulled a 10-day-old baby and his mother out alive after 90 hours trapped in Hatay on Thursday.
6. The Syrian government approved humanitarian aid deliveries across the frontlines of the country’s 12-year civil war, a move that could speed up the arrival of help for millions of desperate people.
7. President Bashar al-Assad made his first reported trip to affected areas since the quake, visiting a hospital in Aleppo with his wife Asma, state media reported.
8. Kurdish militants from the outlawed PKK group announced a temporary halt in fighting to ease recovery work in the wake of a massive earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria.
9. UEFA gave 200,000 euros (USD 214,000) to help with relief work in Turkey, the country that will host the Champions League final in June.
10. Under Operation Dost, India sent 841 cartons of medicines, protection safety tools, and diagnostics to quake-hit Turkey and Syria, news agency ANI reported. The Indian Army set up a field hospital under ‘Operation Dost’ to provide assistance to Turkey’s people.
(With inputs from agencies)
