The death toll is rising, aid transports are stuck and thousands are still missing: the catastrophe that followed the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is far from over.
A good week after the catastrophic earthquake in the Turkish-Syrian border area, almost 40,000 people have died. Although people were still rescued from the rubble on Monday , the hope for more such miracles is fading.
The Türkonfed business association estimates that more than 72,000 people died after the earthquake. Thousands of people are still missing, including a single-digit number of Germans , a spokesman for the Federal Foreign Office said in Berlin on Monday. It must therefore also be assumed that Germans were among the fatalities.
Turkish ambassador praises help in Germany
The Turkish ambassador in Germany, Ahmet Basar Sen, welcomed the visa simplifications for those affected announced by the federal government on Monday. Your relatives “collect, they do everything, they sort, they send. And this willingness to help also includes the fact that they now want to bring their relatives to them,” said Sen.
A spokesman for the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin said that a simplified visa issuance for those affected in Syria would be very difficult because Germany does not have an embassy there.
In the early morning of February 6, a 7.7-magnitude tremor shook the Turkish-Syrian border region, followed hours later by a second 7.6-magnitude tremor. Since then there have been more than 2,400 aftershocks.
More than five million homeless in Syria
Ten provinces are affected in Turkey. There is now a three-month state of emergency. So far, around 1.2 million people have been accommodated in emergency shelters in southeast Turkey, and around 176,000 tents have been set up in the most affected provinces, the Presidential Office announced on Monday. According to the Afad civil protection authority, thousands of residential containers have been set up.
For Syria, the UN refugee agency estimates that up to 5.3 million people in Syria have become homeless as a result of the earthquake. In Aleppo, the city council wants to build new apartments for thousands. It is unclear where people will be accommodated until then.
The delivery of aid in Syria is made more difficult by the fragmented areas, some of which are controlled by the government of Bashar al-Assad, rebels close to Turkey and Kurdish militias. Domestic aid in Syria is still faltering.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 52 trucks with aid supplies from Kurdish-controlled areas for regions in the west of the civil war country were stopped by rebels close to Turkey.
German rescue teams return from Turkey
Teams from many aid organizations – including from Germany – have been working in the earthquake area for days. ISAR Germany, based in NRW, and the Federal Association of Rescue Dogs ended their rescue mission in the Turkish earthquake region after just under a week. The search and rescue team from the Federal Agency for Technical Relief also wanted to return on Monday.
The search for those responsible is ongoing
The head of the Kurdish community, Ali Ertan Toprak, warned of escalating violence. “It worries me more and more that people are attacking each other,” he told the editorial network Germany. “Many towns have not received any help to date. That is why the anger is so great.”
People also wonder why so many buildings could collapse. First arrest warrants were issued. The accused are said to be responsible for construction defects.
Experts criticize that building regulations for more protection against earthquakes are not implemented. The Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu criticized the fact that the government issued a construction amnesty in 2018, with which illegally erected buildings were subsequently legalized in return for a fine. “They turned the houses in which people live into graveyards and took money for it.”
source: zdf
