What role India has played to help natural disaster-hit countries in the past?
In a bid to provide relief to the quake-hit Turkey, India is sending an Army medical team, National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) personnel, and medical supplies. The West Asian nation was struck by a series of massive earthquakes on Monday (February 6) killing over 5,000 people and injuring thousands.
According to the Indian Army, the mobilisation of the field unit took place just hours after the announcement of the disaster relief response to Turkey.
“The medical team comprises critical care specialist teams to include orthopaedic surgical Team, general surgical specialist team, medical specialist teams apart from other medical teams,” the Army said in a statement.
Sending aid to Turkey is yet another instance of India quickly coming in support of a country hit by a natural disaster. In the last 15 years, India has carried out several disaster relief operations and emerged as a leading actor during such emergencies, especially in its neighbourhood. (Read more)
The death toll due to a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in the early hours of February 6 (Monday) has crossed 24,000, making it one of the most destructive disasters in decades. In Syria alone, the death toll crossed 3,500. The Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, said these figures are expected to rise significantly due to the presence of hundreds of families under the rubble.
This comes in a region that already bears the scars of a nearly 12-year-long war, resulting in food shortages, economic collapse, a humanitarian crisis, and a recent cholera outbreak. The country’s national infrastructure has been at a crisis point for years, barely able to support its war-stricken population. Read more
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Two German aid organisations suspended rescue operations in quake-hit Turkey on Saturday, citing security problems and reports of clashes between groups of people and gunfire.
The German International Search and Rescue (ISAR) and Germany's Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) said they would resume their work as soon as Turkish civil protection agency AFAD classifies the situation as safe.
"You can see that sadness is slowly giving way to anger. We will therefore remain in the joint camp with the THW for the time being," ISAR Operations Manager Steven Bayer told Reuters, adding however that the organizations would be immediately ready to help if there are any indications of survivors.
Turkish authorities have not reported clashes in the quake-hit region, but President Tayyip Erdogan commented on the general security situation on Saturday, noting that a state of emergency had been declared and that there had been some looting. (Reuters)
The death toll in Turkey and Syria from the earthquake that struck five days ago has surpassed 25,000.
Turkey’s president on Saturday raised the death toll in his country to 21,848, while in Syria, the reported number of dead was 3,553 in government and rebel-held areas. Some 80,104 people have been injured in Turkey alone, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, speaking in the city of Sanliurfa.
A few survivors are still being pulled from the rubble, however, more than 130 hours after the quake. (AP)
Five days after a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria killing almost 25,000 people, the Indian embassy in Ankara on Saturday confirmed the death of an Indian national, who had been missing since February 6.
“We inform with sorrow that the mortal remains of Shri Vijay Kumar, an Indian national missing in Turkiye since February 6 earthquake, have been found and identified among the debris of a hotel in Malatya, where he was on a business trip,” the Indian embassy in Ankara tweeted on Saturday. Read more
Rescue teams in Turkey on Saturday pulled to safety a family of five who survived inside their collapsed home for five days following a major earthquake in a sprawling border region of Turkey and Syria. The death toll, however, was approaching 25,000.
They first extricated mother and daughter Havva and Fatmagul Aslan from among a mound of debris in the hard-hit town of Nurdagi, in Gaziantep province, HaberTurk reported. The teams later reached the father, Hasan Aslan, but he insisted that his other daughter, Zeynep, and son Saltik Bugra be saved first. Then, as the father was brought out, rescuers cheered and chanted “God is Great!”
Two hours later, a 3-year-old girl and her father were pulled from debris in the town of Islahiye, also in Gaziantep province, and an hour after that a 7-year-old girl was rescued in the province of Hatay, nearly 132 hours after the quake.
The rescues bring to 12 the number of people rescued on Saturday, despite diminishing hopes amid freezing temperatures. (AP)
The biggest names in world football have come together to provide aid to those affected by the devastating earthquake in Turkey earlier this week. The likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland, Neymar Jr. and Eden Hazard have become part of Merih Demiral’s roster of player shirts to be auctioned for raising funds for the relief fund.
The Turkey and Atalanta player had solicited donations to the relief fund on Tuesday via his esports outfit, Team Demiral. It was on the same day that he confirmed that his former Serie A counterpart and five time Ballon D’or winner Cristiano Ronaldo alongside Leonardo Bonucci and Paulo Dybala had contributed their signed jerseys for auction with proceeds donated to a non-profit aiding earthquake disaster relief. Read more
Rescuers in Turkey pulled two women alive from the rubble of collapsed buildings after they were trapped for 122 hours following the region’s deadliest quake in two decades, authorities said on Saturday. The death toll exceeded 24,150 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria.
One of the rescued women, Menekse Tabak, 70, was swaddled in a blanket while rescuers carried her to a waiting ambulance in the province of Kahramanmaras, images from state news agency Anadolu showed.
The other was an injured 55-year-old, identified as Masallah Cicek, who was extricated from the debris of a collapsed building in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeast Turkey, the agency said. Read more
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths described on Saturday the devastating earthquake that hit southern Turkey and northwestern Syria as the "worst event in 100 years in this region".
Speaking during a news briefing in the Turkish province of Kahramanmaras, Griffiths also lauded Turkey's response to the disaster as "extraordinary".
He also told Reuters he hoped in Syria aid would go to both government and opposition-held areas, but that things with this regard were "not clear yet". (Reuters)
Indian ambassador to Turkey Virander Paul Saturday said that there is no information yet about any Indians trapped in the earthquake hit Turkey.
"There are 3,000 Indian people in Turkey. Not many are in earthquake-affected areas, many have moved out. We are in touch with them. We have no information just yet about any Indian trapped," the ambassador said.
"A field hospital has been set up by the Indian Army in Hatay province. Two C-17 aircraft brought medical team required to set up the hospital with 30 beds," Paul said. (ANI)
UEFA gave 200,000 euros ($214,000) on Friday to help relief work after the earthquake in Turkey, the country that will host the Champions League final in June.
The European soccer body also pledged to organize more fund-raising activities in the days leading up to the final on June 10 in Istanbul. It is also coordinating work among its 55 member associations to contribute to a disaster relief fund.
Initial donations included 150,000 euros ($160,000) from UEFA to the Turkish soccer federation, and a combined 50,000 euros ($54,000) for the UEFA Foundation for Children charity to support two organizations working in the disaster area in southern Turkey and Syria. Read more
The biggest names in world football have come together to provide aid to those affected by the devastating earthquake in Turkey earlier this week. The likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland, Neymar Jr. and Eden Hazard have become part of Merih Demiral’s roster of player shirts to be auctioned for raising funds for the relief fund.
The Turkey and Atalanta player had solicited donations to the relief fund on Tuesday via his esports outfit, Team Demiral. It was on the same day that he confirmed that his former Serie A counterpart and five time Ballon D’or winner Cristiano Ronaldo alongside Leonardo Bonucci and Paulo Dybala had contributed their signed jerseys for auction with proceeds donated to a non-profit aiding earthquake disaster relief. (Read more)
They bedded down anywhere they could: on lightless street corners, in grassy little parks, next to an elementary school, on a hillside down from one of the world’s earliest Christian churches.
Across Antakya, the ancient capital of Hatay province, the region hit hardest by the worst earthquake in Turkey in nearly a century, thousands were struggling to make sense of a cataclysm that had turned their lives inside out and left many with no home, no possessions, no memories and, for some, no future here.
Many were grappling with getting through another night. Cars were cold to sleep in and too small to hold most families. But they could be warmer than tents, which were just a thin layer masking the total devastation of the people inside. (Read more)
The Indian Army’s 60 Para Field Hospital has treated as many as 106 earthquake-affected victims in Turkey’s Iskenderun, Hatay till Friday afternoon as part of Operation Dost, government officials said.
Around 19,000 people have reportedly died in Turkey due to the earthquake and thousands have been injured. To help Turkey with the rescue mission and medical aid, India had launched Operation Dost—a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) mission with NDRF and Army teams reaching Turkey within hours of the disaster.
On Tuesday, the Agra-based 60 Para Field Hospital dispatched a 99-member medical team. The mobilisation of the field unit took place hours after the announcement of disaster relief response to the earthquake-hit country. (Read more)
Amidst heart-wrenching visuals emerging from Turkey and Syria after the devastation caused by the earthquakes, there are moments bringing hope to people as rescuers look for survivors buried in the debris. A video of a little dog being rescued after more than 60 hours underneath the rubble in Turkey is now going viral.
A Twitter page named Goodable shared the video Thursday. The 1.36-minutes long video shows rescuers digging out the building rubble and then the head of the dog emerges. Miraculously, the dog appears to be alive, and rescuers start digging faster to pull the poor animal from the rubble. One of the men try to give water to the dog whose face appears injured. (Read more)
A heartwarming photograph taken during the Indian Army’s relief operation in earthquake-hit Turkey this week has gone viral on social media.
The photograph, shared by the Additional Directorate General of Public Information (ADG-PI) of the Indian Army, shows a female Army personnel getting a peck on her cheek from a Turkish woman. The defence force captioned the photograph, “We Care” along with the hashtag Operation Dost. (Read more)
In Adiyaman, a hard-hit city of more than a quarter-million people, rescuers and onlookers suppressed their joy so as not to frighten 4-year-old Yagiz Komsu as he emerged from the debris, according to the HaberTurk television, which broadcast the rescue live.
To distract him, he was given a jelly bean. Teams later rescued his 27-year-old mother, Ayfer Komsu, who had a broken rib. (AP)
In the Mediterranean coastal city of Iskenderun, a crowd chanted “God is great!” as Haci Murat Kilinc and his wife, Raziye, were carried on stretchers to a waiting ambulance.
“You’ve been working so many hours, God bless you!” a relative of the couple told one of their saviours.
One rescue worker said that Kilinc had been joking with crew members while still trapped beneath the rubble, trying to boost their morale. (AP)
? Death toll crosses 24,000. At least 80,000 were injured, and millions were left homeless.
? The quake has already killed more people than Japan’s Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, with many more bodies yet to be recovered and counted.
? The United Nations said the first earthquake-related aid convoy crossed from Turkey into northwestern Syria on Friday — a day after an aid shipment planned before the disaster arrived.
? Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife, Asmaa, visited survivors at the Aleppo University Hospital, according to Syrian state media. It was the leader's first public appearance in an affected area of the country since the disaster. He then visited rescuers in one of the city's hardest-hit areas.
? Some 12,000 buildings in Turkey have either collapsed or sustained serious damage, according to Turkey’s minister of environment and urban planning, Murat Kurum. Engineers suggested that the scale of the devastation was partly explained by lax enforcement of building codes. (AP)
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) in coordination with the Turkish Army on Friday rescued an 8-year-old girl from earthquake-hit Turkey.
The girl was stuck alive under the rubble of a building flattened by the massive earthquake in Nurdagi, Gaziantep in Turkey.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has made his first public appearance in the earthquake-devastated areas of Syria.
Four days after the 7.8-magnitude temblor, Assad and his wife, Asmaa, visited wounded patients Friday at the Aleppo University Hospital, Syrian state media said.
Assad has been meeting with delegations from countries sending aid, but until now those have taken place in Damascus. Friday’s visit to Aleppo marked his first visit to the earthquake-affected areas. (Read more)
The Syrian government has approved humanitarian aid delivery across the frontlines of the country's 12-year civil war, state media said on Friday, adding aid would arrive with those who needed it with the help of the U.N., Syrian Red Crescent and international Red Cross.
State media reported that the government had also declared areas worst affected by Monday's deadly earthquake - Lattakia, Hama, Aleppo and Idlib - disaster zones and would set up a fund to rehabilitate them. (Reuters)
A fire at Turkey's Iskenderun port has been extinguished and maritime operations have resumed in the region, Turkey's maritime authority said on Friday, four days after the blaze broke out after following earthquakes that struck the country. More than a thousand containers which had caught on fire are being separated and the rehabilitation of the port will begin swiftly, it said.
A source at the port said smoke was still rising from the scene as cooling operations continue. "The fire is completely extinguished but smoke is rising. Barring an extraordinary event, it looks like there is no chance for the fire to erupt again but cooling operations will last three more days," the person said. (Reuters)
With the earthquake in Turkey and Syria killing over 21,000 people and resulting in the mass destruction of property, India has launched ‘Operation Dost’ to extend humanitarian aid to Turkey.
Under Operation Dost, India has sent search and rescue teams, mainly three teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), a field hospital, materials, medicines, and equipment to Turkey and Syria. Seven four-wheeled vehicles and trucks, apart from four canines, were sent along with the three teams that were airlifted by an Indian Air Force (IAF) C-17 heavy lift aircraft from the Hindon air base in Ghaziabad to the Adana airport in Turkey. Read more
Turkish authorities' response to the massive earthquakes in the country's south is not as fast as the government wanted, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, adding that the death toll in the country had climbed to 18,991.
Speaking in Adiyaman province, which was also hit by the earthquakes, Erdogan said some people were robbing markets and attacking businesses, adding that a state of emergency declared in the area will allow the state to impose the necessary penalties. (Reuters)
Rescuers pulled a woman alive out of the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey on Friday, prompting cheers from onlookers about 104 hours after she was buried by the huge earthquake that wrought death and destruction across the region. German emergency workers carefully lifted 40-year-old Zeynep Kahraman on a stretcher past shattered blocks of concrete and twisted metal in the town of Kirikhan into an ambulance.
"Now I believe in miracles," Steven Bayer, the leader of the International Search and Rescue team said at the site. "You can see the people crying and hugging each other. It's such a huge relief that this woman under such conditions came out so fit. It's an absolute miracle," he said. (Via Reuters)
Rescue teams continued their search for survivors on Friday as the death toll from earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria neared 21,000. Rescuers from many nations, including India, are working round-the-clock on the fourth day to find survivors trapped under the rubble. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced or injured after a 7.8-magnitude quake and several aftershocks hit Turkey and neighbouring Syria on February 6.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday that 14 trucks carrying humanitarian aid had crossed into northern Syria from Turkey, Reuters reported.
"These convoys are carrying electric heaters, tents, blankets and other items to assist these people who have been displaced as a result of this catastrophic earthquake," said spokesperson Paul Dillon, adding that the aid was bound for Idlib.
Turkey is discussing re-opening a border crossing into Syrian government territory, a Turkish official said on Friday, enabling earthquake aid to be sent directly to areas under President Bashar al-Assad's control after a decade of enmity, Reuters reported. It is also looking at opening another crossing into Syria's opposition-held Idlib region, the official said.
Turkey and Syria broke off diplomatic ties after Assad responded with force to a 2011 uprising against his rule which spilled into a civil war and drove millions of Syrians to seek refuge in Turkey. President Tayyip Erdogan backed rebels fighting to topple Assad and sent Turkish troops into northern Syria. But after nearly 12 years of conflict, he has suggested the two leaders could meet, and their defence ministers held talks in December.
The Turkish official said a border crossing from Turkey's Hatay province into the Syrian government-controlled part of the Mediterranean province of Latakia could be reopened. (Reuters)
Syrian President Bashar Assad has made his first public appearance in the earthquake-devastated areas of Syria. Four days after the 7.8-magnitude temblor, Assad and his wife, Asmaa, visited wounded patients Friday at the Aleppo University Hospital, Syrian state media said.
Aleppo is Syria’s second city, already scarred by years of heavy bombardment and shelling, and was among the most devastated cities by the Feb. 6 earthquake. (Source: Reuters)
They bedded down anywhere they could: on lightless street corners, in grassy little parks, next to an elementary school, on a hillside down from one of the world’s earliest Christian churches.
Across Antakya, the ancient capital of Hatay province, the region hit hardest by the worst earthquake in Turkey in nearly a century, thousands were struggling to make sense of a cataclysm that had turned their lives inside out and left many with no home, no possessions, no memories and, for some, no future here. Read New York Times' report here
After a deadly earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on Monday, the Turkish government has postponed a natural gas summit due to be held on February 14-15 until March 22, Reuters reported.
Setting up a gas hub in Turkey was first proposed by Russia's President Vladimir Putin after explosions damaged Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea. Turkey, currently imports all its gas needs and has extensive LNG import infrastructure. Ankara believes it can leverage its existing and new trade relations to become a gas hub.
A 36-year-old plant engineer from Uttarakhand who is missing in Turkey in the aftermath of the massive earthquake that struck the country and Syria on Monday went there on a month-long office trip and is scheduled to return later this month, his family members based in Dehradun said on Thursday.
Vijay Kumar, the missing person, works for Bengaluru-based Oxyplants India Private Limited and was sent to Turkey by the company for execution and commissioning of a dissolved acetylene gas plant for a gas supply company there, his elder brother, Arun Kumar, said.
“He reached Turkey on January 23 and we last spoke with him on Sunday,” Arun, who also works for Oxyplants as a technical consultant, said. (Read more)
Turkey has for years tempted fate by not enforcing modern construction codes while allowing — and in some cases, encouraging — a real estate boom in earthquake-prone areas, experts say.
The lax enforcement, which experts in geology and engineering have long warned about, is gaining renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of this week's devastating earthquakes, which flattened thousands of buildings and killed more than 20,000 people across Turkey and Syria.
“This is a disaster caused by shoddy construction, not by an earthquake,” said David Alexander, a professor of emergency planning at University College London.
It is common knowledge that many buildings in the areas pummeled by this week’s two massive earthquakes were built with inferior materials and methods, and often did not comply with government standards, said Eyup Muhcu, president of the Chamber of Architects of Turkey.
He said that includes many old buildings, but also apartments erected in recent years — nearly two decades after the country brought its building codes up to modern standards. “The building stock in the area was weak and not sturdy, despite the reality of earthquakes,” Muhcu said.
The problem was largely ignored, experts said, because addressing it would be expensive, unpopular and restrain a key engine of the country's economic growth. (AP)
A Syrian baby girl whose mother died after giving birth to her under the rubble of their home during the massive earthquake on Monday now has a new home and a new name.
The baby has been named Aya, the Arabic word for ‘miracle’, and will be taken to the home of her great-uncle Salah al-Badran after she is discharged from the hospital. Baby Aya’s parents and siblings were killed in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake, that has claimed more than 21,000 lives in northern Syria and Turkey.
Al-Badran’s home in the Syrian town of Jenderis was also destroyed during the earthquake, according to The Associated Press (AP). “After the earthquake, there’s no one able to live in his house or building. Only 10 per cent of the buildings here are safe to live in and the rest are unliveable,” al-Badran told AP. (Read more)
Rescue teams continued their search for survivors on Friday as the death toll from earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria neared 21,000. Rescuers from many nations, including India, are working round the clock on the fourth day to find survivors trapped under the rubble.
Videos of people being rescued from underneath the rubble have been doing rounds on social media. (More videos here)
The death toll in Turkey from this week's devastating earthquakes has risen to 18,342, with the number of people injured rising to 74,242, the country's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said on Friday.
It said that 75,780 quake victims have been evacuated from the quake zone in southern Turkey and that more than 121,000 personnel were involved in the rescue and relief efforts.
There have been 1,509 aftershocks, it added. (Reuters)
Rescuers working by torchlight pulled three-year-old Tariq Haidar from the rubble some 42 hours after a devastating earthquake destroyed his family home in the Syrian town of Jandaris. His family couldn’t be saved.
Orphaned by the earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey in the dead of night on Monday, Haidar was brought to a hospital where doctors were forced to amputate his left leg. They are trying to save his right.
“As soon as he woke up, and saw us in front of him, he asked: ‘Where is Miral?’. We asked ‘Who is Miral?’. He said: ‘My sister, she was sleeping next to me but she wasn’t answering me’,” said Malek Qasida, a nurse caring for him. (Read more)
As rescue crews worked in the dark and in freezing temperatures to find survivors, a plea for silence has spread across the realm.
Teams called for silence, asking all vehicles and generators to stop and reporters to keep quiet as they listened for any sound of life from the mangled concrete.
Many in Turkey have complained of a lack of equipment, expertise and support to rescue those trapped - sometimes even as they could hear cries for help. (Reuters)
Ghana international football player Christian Atsu is missing after the earthquake in Turkey, his club and agent said, following earlier reports he was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building and taken to a hospital.
Atsu's well-being and whereabouts were unknown. Aydin Toksoz, the deputy head of Hatayspor football club, told Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency news service that club sporting director Taner Savut was also missing after the massive earthquake that struck southern Turkey and Syria.
The 31-year-old Atsu, who previously played for English clubs Chelsea and Newcastle, signed for Hatayspor late last year. The club is based in the southern city of Antakya, near the epicenter of the earthquake that struck in the early hours of Monday and devastated the region. Atsu and Savut were believed to have been in buildings that collapsed, the club had said. (AP)
An earthquake of magnitude 4.6 on the Richter scale occurred 19 km SW of Malatya in Turkey, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) announced in a post on Twitter.
The earthquake was reported around 05.03 (local time) at a depth of 2 km, the EMSC said.
The World Bank said Thursday it is providing Turkey with $1.78 billion in relief and recovery financing assistance as the country struggles with the aftermath of an earthquake that has killed over 20,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
The World Bank said in a statement that $780 million will become available for Ankara immediately, as the funds will be diverted from two existing World Bank loan projects in Turkey. Another $1 billion in assistance for Turkey's recovery and reconstruction is also being prepared but will take more time to arrange, a World Bank spokesperson said. (Reuters)
The deaths and destruction caused by the powerful earthquake that hit Turkey on Monday raised questions on whether its aftermath could've been limited with better construction standards.
Building laws in Turkey were changed after the 1999 major earthquake to ensure resistance to such catastrophes.
Yasemin Aktas, an engineer specialising in the effects of earthquakes on buildings at the University College London, told DW that Turkey's existing building standards were not the cause of the devastation that the earthquake wreaked. "I don't think the issue here is the building codes. They weren't in 1999 and they are not now," she said.
Aktas said she saw three main issues at hand: building designs that are not in line with the existing codes, contractors not implementing the codes after construction or, most commonly, post-occupancy modifications. "Starting from the design all the way to post-occupancy stages, things can and go wrong... Unfortunately, this is the issue rather than the building codes," she said.
Aktas also noted that so-called damage mechanisms could have played a role. "How you actually design buildings is that you allow the building to undergo some damage, but in a way that is not going to compromise the stability and therefore won't lead to life losses," she explained. "I can tell that from what we are observing, we can definitely say safely that the buildings were not ready." (Deutsche Welle)
Dig, lift and rejoice... a series of photographs taken from a video has chronicled the process of rescuing the survivors of the earthquake from the rubble in Jandaris, Syria.
Rescuers pulled more survivors from beneath collapsed buildings Friday, but hopes were starting to fade of finding many more people alive over three days after a catastrophic earthquake and series of aftershocks hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 20,700.
The quake that razed thousands of buildings was one of the deadliest worldwide in more than a decade.
The deaths have surpassed the toll from a 2011 earthquake off Fukushima, Japan, that triggered a tsunami, killing more than 18,400. (AP)
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) said an initial $85 million package for emergency relief would go to partners working on the ground in Turkey and Syria. The funding is to help with food deliveries, support safe drinking water and offer shelter and emergency health services.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier spoke on the phone with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, to discuss Turkey's needs.
"We are proud to join the global efforts to help Turkey just as Turkey has so often contributed its own humanitarian rescue experts to so many other countries in the past," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters as he described the call.
US aid to Syria, meanwhile, will go through local partners. Washington has refused to deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and demanded accountability over abuses during the brutal civil war. (Deutsche Welle)
A 36-year-old plant engineer from Uttarakhand who is missing in Turkey in the aftermath of the massive earthquake that struck the country and Syria on Monday went there on a month-long office trip and is scheduled to return later this month, his family members based in Dehradun said on Thursday.
Vijay Kumar, the missing person, works for Bengaluru-based Oxyplants India Private Limited and was sent to Turkey by the company for execution and commissioning of a dissolved acetylene gas plant for a gas supply company there, his elder brother, Arun Kumar, said. Read more
A two-year old boy was rescued on Thursday from the rubble of a building that collapsed in the southern city of Antakya, 79 hours after a massive earthquake struck the area this week, killing more than 19,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
Footage from Turkey's Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) showed rescue workers looking into a narrow opening in the debris of a building in Antakya and pulling out the boy as he wept.
A worker from Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) carried the boy away and handed him over to health workers, as bystanders filmed the rescue on their phones. (Reuters)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday pushed for more humanitarian aid access to northwestern Syria from Turkey, saying he would be "very happy" if the United Nations could use more than one border crossing to deliver help after a deadly earthquake struck the region this week.
The Syrian government views the delivery of aid to the rebel-held northwest from Turkey as a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Since 2014 the United Nations has had a UN Security Council mandate allowing it to reach millions of people in need in the area via one crossing.
Speaking to reporters in New York, Guterres said now was the time to explore all possible avenues to aid and personnel into the area affected by the earthquake, which struck early on Monday morning and has killed at least 19,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
"Many non-UN relief agencies are already delivering through other crossings," Guterres told reporters. "I will be very happy if, in relation to the UN, there will be the possibility to do it also in as many crossings as possible." Guterres did not say whether he has specifically asked the Syrian government to allow aid deliveries through more border crossings, but he did reference the 15-member UN Security Council's ability to approve such a measure. (Reuters)
At least 1,347 people have been killed from a deadly earthquake that rocked Syria and Turkey this week, state media reported on Thursday, citing Syria's health minister.
The figure excludes rebel-held areas of Syria. (AP)
India has made the right call by sending rescue and relief assistance to Turkey and Syria after the earthquake that has killed thousands in the affected areas of both countries, more on the Turkish side. Amid the frighteningly high toll, it is only right that all members of the international community pitch in with help to the best of their ability.
It is in keeping with India’s best tradition of being an early responder to natural disasters and calamities in its immediate neighbourhood, and of late, in other parts of the world as well. While Delhi has stepped in with assistance frequently in the South Asian region, it also reached out with relief supplies and teams from the National Disaster Relief Force and medical teams to Japan during the 2011 tsunami, and to the United States in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This time, too, teams of Army medics and personnel of the NDRF along with medical supplies have been sent to southern Turkey, and to northern Syria. Read the Express Opinion piece
As rescue personnel in Turkey and Syria scramble to save those stuck under building rubble, heartwarming moments of them pulling little ones to safety are giving hope that there could be more survivors.
The White Helmets, a volunteer group officially known as Syria Civil Defence, has shared a clip of a child becoming overwhelmed with joy after being pulled out from the debris of what once was his house in Armanaz village in Syria. Watch video
Delhi’s location makes it vulnerable to earthquakes and the city will have to keep itself prepared, though a major one may not have affected the city in over 200 years, said seismologists.
While a large earthquake may not originate in Delhi itself, it is prone to the impact of earthquakes originating in Himalayas, said Kusala Rajendran, seismologist and retired professor, Centre for Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
Read the full story here
A new cartoon published by the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo has sparked strong reactions on social media.
Tweeted on Monday, the cartoon by artist Pierrick Juin is captioned "Earthquake in Turkey," and shows heaps of rubble and collapsing buildings, along with a second caption: "Don't even need to send tanks."
Many users reacted with anger, saying the cartoon makes light of the tragedy that has killed at least 19,000 people, leaving many more homeless.
Reactions on Twitter, in Turkish, French and some in English, ranged from decrying what is perceived as "hate speech," "stupid" and "racist" to calling the magazine a "disgrace to humanity" for publishing the cartoon. (DW)
Turkish donors are ordering hundreds of containers for delivery to areas struck by two massive earthquakes, as the disaster forced tens of thousands of people to stay outside their homes in freezing cold.
Istanbul-based Karmod said it’s stopped exports to keep pace with the surge in demand from donors in Turkey, according to Mehmet Cankaya, the company’s chief executive.
“We’ve doubled output to 50 container homes per day. Three hundred workers are working round the clock to build them,” he said by phone. (Bloomberg)
Four people died in the town of Jayapura in Papua, eastern Indonesia, after a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck the area at around 3 p.m. local time, with a shallow depth of 10 kilometers.
The four were found in a collapsed cafeteria building, says the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, known as BNPB, in a statement. Homes, public facilities and health facilities were also damaged by quake, which was felt for 2 to 3 seconds. (Bloomberg)
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus heaped praises on a Syrian girl who was seen shielding her younger brother as the two remained trapped in the rubble of the quake that has left over 16,000 dead in Turkey and 3,000 dead.
Rescue efforts continued on Thursday as the death toll crossed 19,000, but hopes of finding survivors diminished on the fourth day of rescue workers. The confirmed death toll in Turkey rose to 16,170 on Thursday. In Syria, already devastated by nearly 12 years of civil war, more than 3,000 people have died, according to the government and a rescue service in the rebel-held northwest.
According to news agency AP, the number of deaths has surpassed the toll in a 2011 earthquake off Japan that triggered a tsunami, killing more than 18,400 people.
The first United Nations convoy carrying emergency aid to a rebel-held area of Syria stricken three days ago by a
deadly earthquake crossed from Turkey. The trucks, with materials from jerrycans to blankets, went via the Bab Al Hawa crossing to Idlib city in an area of northwest Syria where 4 million people, many uprooted by civil war, had relied on aid even before Monday's quake.
Turkey is grappling with one of the biggest challenges from the earthquake that flattened a swathe of its towns and cities: how to shelter hundreds of thousands of people left homeless in the middle of winter.
Banks of tents are being erected in stadiums and shattered city centres, and Mediterranean and Aegean beach resorts outside the quake zone that use the winter months to prepare for summer tourism are opening up hotel rooms for evacuees.
The country's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority has established meeting points for homeless people wanting to be evacuated from the quake zone. It calculates that more than 28,000 people have been brought out so far, with nearly 5,000 leaving by road and more than 23,000 by plane. (Reuters)
For years, the people of Aleppo bore the brunt of bombardment and fighting when their city, once Syria’s largest and most cosmopolitan, was among the civil war’s fiercest battle zones. Even that didn’t prepare them for the new devastation and terror wreaked by this week’s earthquake.
The natural disaster piled on many human-made ones, multiplying the suffering in Aleppo and Syria more broadly.
Fighting largely halted in Aleppo in 2016, but only a small number of the numerous damaged and destroyed buildings had been rebuilt. The population has also more recently struggled with Syria's economic downslide, which has sent food prices soaring and residents thrown into poverty. The shock of the quake is all too much.
Hovig Shehrian said that during the worst of the war in Aleppo, in 2014, he and his parents fled their home in a front-line area because of the shelling and sniper fire. For years, they moved from neighborhood to neighborhood to avoid the fighting. “It was part of our daily routine. Whenever we heard a sound, we left, we knew who to call and what to do,” the 24-year-old said. “But … we didn’t know what to do with the earthquake. I was worried we were going to die.” (AP)