Turkey-Syria earthquake live news: Death toll goes past 29,000

18 UpdatesAuto updates

• Family trapped under building rubble in Antakya

  

  Erdem Avsaoğlu’s sister, her husband and their two children lived in this building in Antakya.

  They were trapped but were still alive and could communicate with they family, until a fire broke out on Tuesday night, then the communication stopped.

  “This is the seventh day now, everyone is tired, we just want to find the bodies in one piece. But we can’t find anything – probably they all got burned,” Erdem said.

  

• Turkey steps up collapsed buildings investigation, orders 113 arrested

  Turkey has pledged to thoroughly investigate anyone suspected of responsibility for the collapse of buildings and has ordered the arrest of 113 suspects.

  Vice President Fuat Oktay said overnight that 131 suspects had so far been identified as responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened in the 10 provinces affected by the earthquakes on Monday.

  “Detention orders have been issued for 113 of them,” Oktay told reporters in a briefing at the disaster management coordination centre in Ankara.

  “We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and buildings that caused deaths and injuries.”

  He said the justice ministry had established earthquake crimes investigation bureaus in the quake zone provinces to investigate deaths and injuries.

• MSF: Few cases of survival after 72-hour window

  Dr Evgenia Zelikova, a medical unit manager for Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), told Al Jazeera that the first 48-72 hours after an earthquake is a crucial window for pulling out survivors from under the rubble.

  “As time goes on there will be less cases of survival,” Zelikova said, speaking from the Jordanian capital, Amman. “Our teams working in northwest Syria at the hospitals started to see less and less cases of survivors after 72 hours.”

  “Being under the cold weather for a long period of time is the biggest factor in losing blood and body temperature which will have consequences on the survival possibility,” she went on to say.

  Zelikova said of primary concern health-wise is the epidemiological situation, the cold weather, the partially destroyed infrastructure, waterborne disease, access to healthcare for those with chronic diseases, and mental health.

  “The Syrian population in the northwest is already at a high risk [of deteriorating mental health] because of the prolonged crisis and difficult conditions, and of course, such a traumatising event can increase their vulnerability further,” she said.

• Qatar provides earthquake aid to Syria’s White Helmets

  Qatar has provided help to northwestern Syria’s aid group, the White Helmets, to support their earthquake search and rescue operations, the Qatar Fund for Development said.

  The aid includes ambulance repairs and fuel to operate heavy vehicles, it added.

  “The road ahead is long, but we can’t face this disaster without your help,” the White Helmets wrote on Twitter, thanking Qatar.

  The White Helmets, a group of 3,000 volunteer rescuers, has sharply criticised the lack of aid reaching the opposition-held areas where they work.

  On Saturday, the group said it had not rescued anyone since Thursday and that it was now working to remove the bodies from the rubble.

  1/2- We express our deepest heartfelt gratitude for the generosity of @qatar_fund. We are grateful to our brothers and sisters in #Qatar for their support in our emergency operations to the #earthquake. The road ahead is long, but we can’t face this disaster without your help. https://t.co/tOk5GmOWYQ

  — The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) February 12, 2023

• Germany offers temporary visas for quake victims

  Germany has announced that people affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria will be allowed to stay temporarily with relatives living in the country.

  “This is emergency aid,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told the Bild newspaper. “We want to allow Turkish or Syrian families in Germany to bring their close relatives from the disaster area to their homes without bureaucracy.”

  Read more here.

  Unkomplizierte #Visa für Erdbebenopfer. Bundesinnenministerin Nancy #Faeser: “Es geht um Hilfe in der Not. Wir wollen ermöglichen, dass türkische oder syrische Familien in Deutschland enge Verwandte aus der Katastrophenregion unbürokratisch zu sich holen können.” pic.twitter.com/Rl76NAeAUL

  — Bundesministerium des Innern und für Heimat (@BMI_Bund) February 11, 2023

• China sends tonnes of tents to Turkey: State broadcaster

  China has shipped 53 tonnes of tents to aid earthquake-hit Turkey, with more emergency aid planned in the near future, state broadcaster CCTV said.

  The tents, sent from Shanghai, are scheduled to arrive in Istanbul later on Sunday, CCTV said.

  The first batch of supplies from China – 40,000 blankets – arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, according to CCTV. It is planning to send medical equipment, including electrocardiogram machines, ultrasound diagnostic instruments, and medical vehicles and hospital beds soon, CCTV said.

• ‘Our pain is immense’: Earthquake survivor

  Şerizan Ağbaş, 61, has been sleeping in a chair in the garden of a school in Iskenderun since the earthquakes devastated the region on Monday. She shares fire and food with rescuers.

  Her apartment block is still standing but is deemed unsafe to stay in. She said most of the buildings that either collapsed or became uninhabitable following the quakes were built in the last year, and anger is growing over the quality of construction.

  “Our pain is immense. I have only 15 lire in my pocket,” she told Al Jazeera. “I have nothing to lose now, so I’m not afraid.”

  Nearby, locals said 14 people were saved from a collapsed building, but they believe more than 100 people died in it.

  

  

• About 1,100 bodies brought across Turkey-Syria crossing: Officials

  About 1,100 bodies have so far been brought across the only border crossing between Turkey and opposition-held northwest Syria, officials who administer the Bab al-Hawa crossing said on Saturday.

  They said they were working “around the clock” to deliver bodies from Turkey to Syria. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees fled to the southern Turkish region hardest hit by the earthquake amid Syria’s ongoing civil war.

  

  

• Sign up for Al Jazeera

  Week in the Middle East

  Catch up on our coverage of the region, all in one place.

• Greek foreign minister visits Turkey’s quake-hit areas

  Greece’s foreign minister has arrived in Turkey in a show of support, despite a longstanding rivalry between the two NATO countries.

  Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias met his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, according to footage on state-run ERT TV, before they boarded helicopters to quake-hit regions.

  Dendias’s 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.

• Turkey trying to avoid public health catastrophe: AJ correspondent

  Reporting from Antakya, Turkey, Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith says a public health crisis is looming in the devastation.

  “One of the challenges is the government wants to move people from areas to stop a public health catastrophe, the air is thick with smoke and dust, there’s no sanitation, people are still buried under the rubble and are still sleeping out in the open,” he said.

  “So they need to provide the tents. There are some tents, here on the outskirts of Antakya, that is, they are beginning to arrive but there still aren’t enough yet,” Smith said. “The government needs to get people out of this area and these areas so that they can start trying to rebuild and start trying to clear the debris but also so they can maintain public health.”

  

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies