Turkey-Syria earthquake highlights: Syria approves international aid delivery to rebel-held areas

Turkey-Syria earthquake highlights: Rescuers pulled more survivors from beneath collapsed buildings Thursday, but hopes were starting to fade of finding many more people alive over three days after the catastrophic quake.

Turkey-Syria earthquake LIVE updates: Rescuers pull out a woman from a collapsed building on Thursday, 87 hours after the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, (AP)

Turkey-Syria earthquake live: Rescuers were scouring debris on Friday nearly 100 hours after a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing at least 21,000 people in one of the region's worst disasters for a century....Read More

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• 11 Feb 2023, 04:24:38 AM IST

  5.3 million may be homeless in Syria after earthquake: UNHCR

  As many as 5.3 million people in Syria may have been left homeless by the earthquake," the Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sivanka Dhanapala, told a press briefing.

  "We are also leading in the protection sector here. Throughout Syria, we have a network of community centres, satellite centres, outreach volunteers, and this helps us reach vulnerable populations. We've set up hotlines for all sorts of protection-related issues, which we use," he added. (ANI)

• 11 Feb 2023, 03:09:32 AM IST

  Turkey earthquake: 10-day-old baby, mother rescued from debris

  Rescue crews saved a 10-day-old baby and his mother trapped in the ruins of a building in Turkey on Friday and dug several people out from other sites as President Tayyip Erdogan said authorities should have reacted faster to this week's huge earthquake, reports Reuters.

  In the Samandag district of Turkey, rescuers crouched under concrete slabs and whispering "Inshallah" (God willing), carefully reached into the rubble and picked out the 10-day-old newborn. His eyes wide open, baby Yagiz Ulas was wrapped in a thermal blanket and carried to a field hospital. Emergency workers also took away his mother, dazed and pale but conscious on a stretcher, as per the report.

• 11 Feb 2023, 12:34:31 AM IST

  Rebuilding costs in Turkey may exceed $3 billion: Report

  Rebuilding costs in Turkey could be between $3 billion and $5 billion, or possibly more, according to an estimate by the Bank of America, as reported by Bloomberg.

• 10 Feb 2023, 10:59:39 PM IST

  India sends 841 cartons of medicines, diagnostic kits to quake-hit Turkey, Syria

  Under Operation Dost, India sent 841 cartons of medicines, protection safety tools, and diagnostics to quake-hit Turkey and Syria, according to official sources on Friday.

• 10 Feb 2023, 08:35:32 PM IST

  Syria approves international aid delivery to rebel-held areas

  The Syrian government said on Friday it had approved the delivery of humanitarian aid to areas outside its control in the quake-hit rebel-held northwest of the country, AFP reported.

• 10 Feb 2023, 08:07:24 PM IST

  UN urges 'immediate ceasefire' in Syria to facilitate quake aid

  UN urges 'immediate ceasefire' in Syria to facilitate quake aid, reports AFP.

• 10 Feb 2023, 06:30:24 PM IST

  Erdogan admits quake rescue effort not as quick as hoped

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted for the first time Friday that his government's search and rescue effort from this week's devastating earthquake was not going as quickly as hoped.

  Erdogan has faced criticism from the quake's survivors about an insufficient number of rescuers and humanitarian aid being delivered in the first days of Turkey's biggest disaster in nearly a century.

• 10 Feb 2023, 05:14:19 PM IST

  After 104 hours buried by Turkey earthquake, woman brought out alive

  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.

• 10 Feb 2023, 04:09:34 PM IST

  Turkey may open border to Syrian government-held region for aid

  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.

• 10 Feb 2023, 03:21:05 PM IST

  Turkey postpones gas hub summit to March 22 after earthquake

  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.

• 10 Feb 2023, 01:40:43 PM IST

  Dog rescued from rubble

  When rescuers saved a dog named Pamuk from the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay; captured by AFP photographer Gurkan Ozturk.

• 10 Feb 2023, 01:04:09 PM IST

  Kurdish militant group to ‘suspend’ activity after quake: Report

  Kurdish militant group PKK or Kurdistan Workers' Party says suspending 'actions' after Turkey quake, reports AFP

• 10 Feb 2023, 12:35:05 PM IST

  Turkey in talks with Russia to send aid to Syria

  Turkey is trying to get a green light from Russia to use new border crossings for delivering aid to earthquake survivors in northwest Syria, reported Bloomberg citing officials. Ankara is in talks with Moscow to allow a flow of international supplies through Turkish border crossings Oncupinar and Cobanbey in Kilis province, in addition to an existing one further west, the officials said.

• 10 Feb 2023, 12:08:50 PM IST

  Turkish donors order container homes for survivors

  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, as per a Bloomberg report.

• 10 Feb 2023, 10:59:26 AM IST

  Rescuers race to find survivors

  Bitter cold hampered search efforts in both Turkey and Syria, but more than 80 hours after the disaster struck, 16-year-old Melda Adtas was found alive in the southern Turkish city of Antakya. Read more

• 10 Feb 2023, 10:24:54 AM IST

  Watch: Hope fades for survivors as death toll passes 21,000

  Scores of people were seen crying and praying as the quake survivors began to bury the dead at newly opened graves in Pazarcik, Turkey.

• 10 Feb 2023, 09:58:52 AM IST

  Turkish Anger Turns to Erdogan Over Quake Delays, Weak Buildings

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing mounting criticism from earthquake survivors and opposition parties over the country’s poor construction record and what they say has been an inadequate response to one of its worst natural disasters. Critics say the government’s delay in sending cranes and other heavy machinery to lift slabs of concrete missed a critical window of opportunity to save people, according to a Bloomberg report.

• 10 Feb 2023, 08:54:24 AM IST

  Earthquake of magnitude 4.6 jolts Turkey's Malatya

  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.

• 10 Feb 2023, 08:00:17 AM IST

  'Shame on you!': Erdogan faces voter fury in quake zone

  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed holding a crunch election on May 14 that could keep his Islamic-rooted government in power until 2028. The earthquake that killed more than 21,000 people across Turkey and Syria came at one of the most politically sensitive moments of Erdogan's two-decade rule. Whether that vote can now go ahead as planned remains to be seen, reported AFP.

• 10 Feb 2023, 07:03:43 AM IST

  Student uses WhatsApp to share location from under debris in Turkey, rescued

  A 20-year-old student, Boran Kubat, was rescued from under the debris of an apartment building in eastern Turkey after sharing his location in a video appeal on WhatsApp. Read more

• 10 Feb 2023, 06:57:40 AM IST

  Watch: Ukrainian rescuers arrive in Turkey

  Rescuers from Ukrainian emergency services set up a "tent city" in Antakya, Turkey, to begin search and rescue operations, reported AFP

• 10 Feb 2023, 06:13:53 AM IST

  After the silence, body bags: Turkish town counts its dead

  Rescuers, who went into a hole in an apartment block turned into a pile of concrete and steel pancakes with blankets and a pillow, came out again with a body bag. The scene has been repeated countless times in wpr, a town of 40,000 people, where officials would not give a death toll but said there were definitely hundreds of fatalities. Read more

• 10 Feb 2023, 05:54:26 AM IST

  WHO chief departs for quake-hit Syria

  Taking to his official Twitter handle, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus informed about his visit to Syria and stated that WHO has been supporting essential health care in earthquake-affected regions.

• 10 Feb 2023, 05:48:21 AM IST

  World Bank joins aid effort

  The World Bank will provide Turkey $1.78 billion in assistance for relief and recovery work, with immediate assistance of $780 million through two existing projects in the country to rebuild basic municipal-level infrastructure. It’s also preparing an extra $1 billion in operations to support people affected. Read more

• 10 Feb 2023, 05:37:38 AM IST

  US announces $85 million aid 

  The United States will provide $85 million in initial earthquake aid to Turkey and Syria. The relief will include medicine, food and shelter along with other supplies, President Joe Biden announced Thursday. Read more

• 10 Feb 2023, 05:31:00 AM IST

  ‘Much more help needed’: UN chief

  U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is pressing the international community to provide money for Turkey and Syria and work on physical access for aid to earthquake-stricken parts of Syria. Hours after a U.N. aid convoy crossed from Turkey into Syria’s rebel-held northwest for the first time since Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake, Guterres said, “More help is on the way, but much more is needed.”