Photos from across southern Turkey and northern Syria show devastation and anguish as hopes of finding survivors fade more than four days after Monday’s massive earthquake hit the area.
More than 21,000 people have been killed in both countries and rescuers are now racing against time to pull survivors out of the rubble of collapsed buildings in frigid winter conditions.
According to authorities, at least 78,124 people were injured across Turkey and Syria.
A United Nations aid convoy traveled from Turkey to northwest Syria on Thursday for the first time since the quake struck. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, six trucks carrying shelter and non-food items (NFI) drove through the Bab Al Hawa border crossing.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was open to the idea of delivering aid through additional border crossings, beyond Bab al-Hawa, the only UN-approved humanitarian aid corridor between Turkey and rebel-controlled areas in northern Syria.
In Syria, the devastation of the earthquake piled more suffering on top of the current humanitarian crisis caused by a civil war that has dragged on for more than a decade. Millions of people living in northwestern Syria, largely controlled by anti-government rebels, were affected by extreme poverty and cholera outbreaks when the earthquake struck.
Now, many are fending for themselves, as many Western countries have refused to send aid directly to the Syrian government. under US and EU sanctions.
The Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, has warned that hopes of finding survivors are fading in the country.
Mousa ZidaneOne volunteer for the group told CNN on Thursday that in the aftermath of the earthquake, “tens of thousands of families are now homeless across northwestern Syria.”
cold weather Making the disaster worse, he said, as rescue teams struggled to get people out of the wreckage.
In rebel-controlled Idlib province, a man told AFPTV on Thursday that he had been digging through rubble with his hands while searching for 30 relatives in the village of Besnaya.
Malik Ibrahim, 40, said he had recovered 10 bodies after two days of sleepless searching.
“It’s indescribable, I’m speechless, it’s tragic,” he said. “The whole family is gone, and all our memories are buried with them.”
