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Key events
More from Sky’s interview with the UK’s Andrew Mitchell.
On the subject of the UK’s aid to Syria, which was halved from around £180m in 2020 to £90m in 2021, Mitchell defended the cut, adding that the aid budget will increase once the economy improves.
He said:
It will go back up to 0.7% when the two fiscal tests that were set down by Rishi and confirmed by parliament are met. I can’t tell you precisely when that will be because it’s not clear how quickly the economy is going to recover,” he says.
The economy has suffered significantly from Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine and also, of course, from the aftermath of Covid. So I can’t give you an answer to that.
But what I can tell you is that my job is to try and make sure that we have multipliers which augment the money that we can use. And we are doing that as fast as we possibly can.”
The UK’s development minister Andrew Mitchell has said the situation following the earthquake is “bleak beyond belief”.
Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, he said he believed the current death toll of 28,000 was an underestimation.
“I’m afraid so, it is bleak beyond belief. It is the worst crisis, the worst earthquake that we face certainly since Nepal, probably since Haiti.”
He agreed with estimates that the UN emergency coordinator Martin Griffiths gave yesterday that the death toll could hit 50,000, adding he believed it “is the right figure, I fear, that we are going to see”.
He said that there was well-organised rescue operation in Turkey and “lessons have been learned” since Haiti.
On the quake-hit areas of northern Syria he said it is “much more difficult to get help and relief” there and because of the lack of infrastructure in the ungoverned areas people there are in “very deep jeopardy” in below-freezing temperatures.
He said that two flights had departed on Saturday night, one from RAF Brize Norton and one from Dubai taking tents and blankets to Turkey “and much of that, of course, is bound for Syria,” he added.
He added:
It is in Syria that the international community is far more stretched. We were able to get through the one crossing that is open for the UN, but that crossing too was badly damaged in the earthquake and because of the Russian veto the UN cannot use the other three crossing out of Turkey into Syria. So it is in Syria where the real problems lie.”
China has shipped 53 tonnes of tents to aid earthquake-hit Turkey on Sunday, state broadcaster CCTV said.
The tents departed Shanghai on large cargo planes and are scheduled to arrive in Istanbul later on Sunday, the broadcaster added, Reuters reports.
The first batch of supplies from China’s government, 40,000 blankets, arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, according to CCTV.
It added that the country is planning to send medical equipment, including electrocardiogram machines, ultrasound diagnostic instruments, medical vehicles and hospital beds in the near future.
A rescue team of 82 members dispatched by the Chinese government arrived in Turkey on Wednesday, CCTV reported.
Turkey issues 133 arrest warrants over building construction
Arrests warrants have been issued for 113 people in connection with the construction of buildings that collapsed in Monday’s earthquake, officials in Turkey have said.
Turkish police have already taken at least 12 people into custody, including building contractors.
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While more arrests are likely, some critics are suggesting it is an attempt to divert blame for the disaster, as experts have consistently warned many new buildings in Turkey were unsafe.
The BBC reports that government policies allowed “amnesties” for contractors who didn’t adhere to building regulations, including in earthquake-prone areas, in a bid to spark a construction boom.
Greece’s foreign minister Nikos Dendias arrived in Turkey on Sunday in a show of support, the ministry said, despite a longstanding rivalry between the two Nato countries.
Dendias was met by his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, according to footage on state-run ERT TV, before they boarded helicopters to visit the quake-hit regions, Agence France-Presse reports.
His arrival marks the first visit by a European minister to Turkey since the earthquake.
The two ministers are travelling to Antakya, where Greek rescuers are helping with search and rescue operations.
The ministry said he will also visit members of the Greek Aid Mission in the country.
So far, the Greek government has sent 80 tonnes of medical and first aid equipment.
According to the ministry, the foreign minister will also discuss ways Greece can give further assistance to Turkey.
Good morning.
As the rescue efforts continue following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, here is a summary of recent events.
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The death toll from Monday’s earthquake has surpassed 28,000. Turkish vice president said last night the death toll in his country had risen to 24,617. The Agence France-Presse has reported there has been 3,553 death in Syria.
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UN emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths said the death toll from the earthquake is likely to “more than double”, adding that he expected tens of thousands more deaths. He visited the Turkish province of Kahramanmaraş on Saturday, describing the earthquake as the “worst event in 100 years in this region”
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Search operations continue, and in Turkey’s southeastern province of Hatay, a Romanian rescue team carried a 35-year-old man named Mustafa down a pile of debris from a building, broadcaster CNN Turk said, about 149 hours after the quake.
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A spokesman for the UN secretary-general has told the BBC it was time “to put all politics aside” to deliver aid to Syria, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, added that it was “hard to imagine a more complex emergency” in Syria.
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The WHO’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reportedly visited Aleppo on Saturday
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Turkey’s president, Tayyip Recep Erdoğan, has warned that looters will be punished after reports of people taking goods in earthquake-hit areas. Turkish authorities arrested 48 people for looting or trying to defraud victims, state media reported on Saturday.
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Turkish police have detained 12 people over collapsed buildings in the southeastern provinces of Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa, including building contractors, following the huge quake that hit Turkey, local media reported on Saturday.Turkish officials issued more than 100 arrest warrants in connection with the poor construction of buildings that collapsed in Monday’s earthquakes in Turkey.
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Facing questions over his handling of Turkey’s most devastating earthquake since 1939, President Tayyip Erdogan promised to start rebuilding within weeks, saying hundreds of thousands of buildings were wrecked.
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The European Union’s envoy to Syria urged Damascus not to politicise issues of humanitarian aid, rejecting accusations as “unfair” that the bloc had failed to provide sufficient help to Syrians. “It is absolutely unfair to be accused of not providing aid, when actually we have constantly been doing exactly that for over a decade and we are doing so much more even during the earthquake crisis,” Dan Stoenescu told Reuters.
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A border gate between Turkey and Armenia opened for the first time in 35 years on Saturday to allow aid to reach those affected in southern Turkey, state-owned Anadolu news agency and a diplomat said
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Turkish energy company Karadeniz Holding said on Saturday it would send two humanitarian aid ships that can each house 1,500 people, to help the relief effort in the southern province of Hatay, Turkey, Reuters reports
