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Anger has mounted in Turkey over what was described as a slow and inadequate response by authorities to the powerful earthquake that also hit neighbouring Syria, as the death toll passed 8,000 and chances of finding survivors narrowed.
Rescuers worked through the night on Wednesday, searching through the rubble of collapsed buildings, while freezing conditions, destroyed roads and poor infrastructure hindered the search in both countries.
Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, followed hours later by a second quake almost as powerful, toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, injuring tens of thousands, leaving countless numbers homeless across Turkey and Syria.
Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. But residents in several damaged cities voiced anger and despair over the response by authorities to the deadliest earthquake to hit Turkey in decades.
“There is not even a single person here. We are under the snow, without a home, without anything,” Murat Alinak, whose home in Malatya collapsed and whose relatives are missing, told Reuters. “What shall I do, where can I go?”
People in remote towns in southern Turkey described how relief efforts were stretched to breaking point, amid the destruction that spanned over a border region almost 650 miles long.
Despite critical need to reach survivors quickly, no rescue teams arrived in the city of Gaziantep in the first 12 hours after the disaster, forcing victims’ relatives and local police to clear the ruins by hand, witnesses told AFP.
When the rescuers finally came on Monday evening, they only worked for a few hours before breaking for the night, residents told AFP.
Many Turks vented their anger online over what they said was a negligent emergency response in the southern-most province of Hatay, with many complaining that rescue efforts had failed to reach the area.
In Hatay, the quake levelled multiple government buildings including the local chapter of Turkey’s disaster relief agency, the AFAD.
“I am so angry,” said analyst Gönül Tol, of the Middle East Institute in Washington. “People are trying to dig out loved ones trapped under rubble. It is cold, raining, no electricity. One family member is trapped under a heavy concrete slab, waiting for rescue workers for hours.”
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Without enough rescuers, volunteers say they will have to step in and do the hard work themselves.
“We go to places to help people who were originally supposed to be rescued by the Red Crescent, but where no help comes,” said Ceren Soylu, a member of a volunteer group set up by the right-wing opposition Iyi Party.
On Wednesday, the death toll passed 8,000. In Turkey, 5,894 people are known to have been killed, while 2,470 people have died in Syria for a combined total of 8,364 fatalities.
Murat Harun Öngören, a coordinator with AKUT, Turkey’s largest civil society aid and rescue organisation, said efforts to reach those affected across southern Turkey had been severely impeded by the cold weather and icy conditions – as well as the sheer size of the affected area.
“We often define major earthquakes as disasters. This is more than an earthquake, this is a disaster,” he said.
The coordinator said those trapped beneath rubble were at increasing risk with each passing hour. “To ensure people get the proper help might not be easy for the first 72 hours after such major and catastrophic earthquakes,” he said. “Team coordination, transportation and logistical issues are not easy.”.
Öngören also said the true number of collapsed buildings was likely to greatly exceed the confirmed tally so far, adding: “When you combine the number of these collapsed buildings with other criteria, I can say that we are faced with a difficult operation.”
Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria, already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of civil war. Syrian authorities have reported deaths as far south as Hama, 250 km from the epicentre.
On Tuesday, a newborn baby girl was pulled alive from the rubble of a home in northern Syria, after relatives found her still tied by her umbilical cord to her mother, who died in the earthquake. The infant is the sole survivor of her immediate family.
“It’s now a race against time,” World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. “Every minute, every hour that passes, the chances of finding survivors alive diminishes.”
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
