After the earthquake

In Gaziantep, where the first quake struck at 4am, 39-year-old Muhammed Zahir Nasher, like many others in and around the city, originally from Syria, was asleep with his wife and children.

Used to the minor tremors that regularly visit the region, Muhammed was not unduly alarmed. “At first I thought it was nothing. It would pass, but it quickly grew,” he told The New European from the shelter of a relative’s apartment, “My wife wanted to leave, but I said to stay. I thought it would pass, but it didn’t. It went on for 101 seconds.”

Muhammed was unable to stand. The force of the quake tossed him around the apartment. Eventually he and his family tried the stairs. “My son was excited. He watches a lot of documentaries about earthquakes and volcanoes, so he really liked it, but my daughter, no. She had hurt her head a little and was crying very loudly. Everyone was crying and screaming. There was no light, just the streetlight.”

Eventually they emerged into the cold and the melting snow to shelter along with much of Gaziantep. Over time, they made for their car, using the heater to stay warm during the day, before a family member took them in. “I’ve seen a lot of government workers handing out soup and bread. There are shelters where people are going,” he said.

In the nearby Turkish city of Hatay, aerial footage shows entire swathes of the town to have been levelled by the quake. In Malatnaya, video shows crowds fleeing as buildings collapse under the force of the second quake. Other cities, such as Smaniye, Adiyaman and Kilis and many others have all but been wiped out.

Turkey’s President Recip Tayyip Erdogan has declared a three month state of emergency to deal with the massive humanitarian crisis. Speaking yesterday, his second speech since the first earthquake, he confirmed that 70 countries have offered help in rescue operations, with hotels in the tourist hub of Antalya, to the west, made available to house those impacted by the disaster. In Syria, already scarred by a bloody civil war that has dragged on for 12 years, the impact of the quake reached across rebel-held Idlib, home to some 4.5 million people, and into regime-controlled territories, such as Aleppo, Latakia and Tartous.

One man in the town of Jandairis near Aleppo told AFP he had lost 12 members of his family in the earthquake, echoing the frustration of many trapped in Turkey’s more remote regions still waiting on government help. Another said some of his relatives were trapped under the rubble. “We hear their voices, they’re still alive, but there’s no way to get them out,” he said. “There’s no one to rescue them. There’s no machinery.”

The situation in Idlib is especially bleak. It is the last stretch of rebel held territory in the country and a refuge for both civilians and militia fighters who settled there as part of negotiated surrender agreements. Many people in Idlib now subsist in crude or makeshift accommodation.

Even before the earthquake, access to the province was limited, with shortages in fuel, food and water commonplace. The weather, has been wet and freezing. A cholera outbreak has worsened conditions even further.

“We’ve been working 24/7 around the clock,” Ismail Abdullah of Syrian Civil Defence, or the White Helmets, told The New European from within Idlib, “NW Syria is in a state of total catastrophe and destruction and there doesn’t seem to be any end in site, at least not without the help of the international community.

“The scale of the disaster is beyond our capacity. An hour ago, we reported 900+ deaths and 2,300+ injuries, but the number changes minute by minute, hour by hour, there are still so many people trapped under the rubble,” he said. Ismail estimates that two hundred or more buildings had been entirely destroyed and five hundred badly damaged.

“We are racing against time,” he said “if people are not saved from under the rubble soon the death toll will dramatically rise. The weather is a huge issue. Before the earthquake we were battling a harsh winter, the earthquake adds to the devastation and tragedy.

“There is no safe zone and no shelter. People are out in the freezing cold. This devastation comes after over a decade of war in Syria. The infrastructure and the people and the local actors are not equipped to deal with a catastrophe of this scale. That’s what makes it different from previous incidents.”

Despite Turkey working to improve safety standards for years, including passing new regulations in 2019 to ‘earthquake proof’ construction, many older and dilapidated properties have still collapsed.

As for people suffering across the border, Syria’s Ambassador to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh has insisted that all aid to the territory be channelled through Damascus, once more trusting the fate of millions within the rebel held territory to the mercies of a regime that has, thus far, shown them none. Damascus has also called for the lifting of the heavy sanctions it blames for crippling much of its economy and infrastructure, despite a number of UN agencies distributing aid from their bases in the capital. Its allies in Russia and Iran have all agreed to provide relief, as well as a number of gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates, which recently restored ties with the regime. On Monday, both the White House and the European Commission confirmed that existing programmes supported by them would include Syria within their humanitarian aid programme.

In addition, as well as the support of NGOs, such as the White Helmets, International Rescue Committee and The Red Crescent, international aid does appear to be materialising. From the UK, 70 rescue specialists and sniffer dogs have been dispatched to assist, despite the “very considerable strain” this placed on the development budget, the cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell told Sky News. From across the EU, 1,180 rescuers are either within or on route to the affected area, joining a worldwide effort that continues to scramble to provide an adequate response to the scale of the destruction in Syria and Turkey.