Earthquake relief teams reach Syria as searches continue in Turkey

How it all unfolded

The first 7.8 earthquake hit the city of Gaziantep in southern Turkey at around 4.20 AM on Monday morning, while most people were asleep in their beds.

About ten minutes later, a second 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit.

Within four hours, authorities reported that over 140 buildings had collapsed in Malatya, the largest city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey.  In nearby Kahramanmaras, an entire neighbourhood of high-rises fell, with only a few lucky buildings continuing to stand around them.

By Tuesday, 6,000 to 7,000 buildings had been reported damaged or completely demolished across the South-east.

With local rescue efforts quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the event, and 120 more aftershocks recorded in Turkey during these missions, the event would soon be realised as the world’s deadliest natural disaster in a century.

So far, 250,000 people have been left homeless. Many are sleeping in cars or outdoors in the cold, while those whose homes still stand fear staying inside overnight over concerns their homes will collapse around them.

The situation in Syria has become dire after three days without UN aid. The first convoys crossed the border today, with many staff aware that earthquake survival rates drop to 5-10 percent after the 72 hours period.  They also face truck shortages, blocked roads, and other logistical issues during the journey.

In both Syria and Turkey, power and internet outages are making communication with family and friends difficult. Fuel shortages are also going to be major hurdles in offering relief.

Science behind the quake

Unfortunately, Turkey is located along a very dangerous tectonic plate fault line.

Geologists, scientists, and even politicians say that although this week’s earthquake is devastating, it is ‘not a surprise’ that a quake of this kind occurred. This is because the tectonic plates are overlapping rapidly, at a rate of 2cm per year.

In 1999, Turkey experienced an eerily similar disaster when 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit the seaside town of Izmit.

Buildings collapsed, killing 17,000 people and rendering more than 250,000 homeless. It resulted in the Turkish government enforcing stronger building measures and putting compulsory earthquake insurance systems in place in 2000.

However, structures built before the turn of the millennia were unlikely to have reinforcements added. Experts say these were amongst the first to collapse this week.

As a country experiencing almost a decade of civil war, Syria’s infrastructure is already fragile. In Aleppo and Idlib, the hardest hit areas, war-damaged buildings have been previously repaired with low-cost and low-quality materials – sometimes ‘whatever is available,’ according to officials.

This has made Syria’s crumbling landscape especially vulnerable to natural disasters.

How are other countries stepping up?

If there’s any positive news in the wake of all this, it’s the speed at which international response has come flooding in.

At least 100,000 search and rescue personnel have been sent into Turkey and now Syria over the last few days, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Turkey has also received aid pledges from 95 countries and 16 international organisations.

Despite the impressive outpouring of funding, supplies, and relief workers on the ground, officials say it could be a decade before affected areas of Turkey and Syria resemble anything similar to what they were only days ago.

With every hour that passes, rescue missions become less about listening for calls for help and more about returning bodies to relatives. But there have been some amazing glimmers of hope.

At 68 hours since the first quake, a baby was saved from beneath debris in Hatay Province. Later, a family of four was rescued in Adiyaman province. At an astonishing 78 hours, numerous infants, young children, and animals have been found alive in Turkey and Syria.

It’s tough moments like this where humanity pulls together to get the job done. It makes many leaders and global citizens ignore political differences in order to help those in need.

Let’s hope we see more positive developments in the days to come, as these nations begin taking steps towards rebuilding and healing.