Erdoğan condemns criticism, says Turkey death toll now 9,057
Speaking in Hatay province, close to the epicentre of the quakes, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said the number of people confirmed dead in Turkey had increased to 9,057, Reuters reports.
Syrian officials and a rescue group in rebel-held north-west Syria have said the death toll there has reached 2,662, bringing the combined tally to 11,719.
The president also condemned criticism of the government’s rescue effort, condemned by many in the country as slow and inadequate.
“This is a time for unity, solidarity. In a period like this, I cannot stomach people conducting negative campaigns for political interest,” Erdoğan said, adding that it was not possible to be prepared for such a disaster.
Key events
A summary of today’s developments
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The number of people killed in Turkey and Syria after the earthquakes has risen to at least 12,049.
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Syria’s civil defence said at least 2,992 people had been killed in north-west Syria. It said there were more than 2,850 injured.
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Earlier, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, said the toll in his country had risen to 9,057. The president also condemned criticism of the government’s rescue effort, condemned by many in the country as slow and inadequate.
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More than 298,000 people have been forced to leave their homes due to this week’s deadly earthquake, Syrian state media has reported. The number appeared to be a reference only to the parts of Syria under government control, not those held by other factions in the north-west of the country, which is closer to the epicentre of Monday’s quake.
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The World Health Organization is sending expert teams and special flights with medical supplies to Turkey and Syria, the director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a media briefing attended by Reuters.
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Polish rescuers working in Turkey said they had pulled nine people alive from the rubble so far, including parents with two children and a 13-year-old girl from the ruins in the city of Besni.
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Rescue workers and residents erupted in cheers when a family was saved from the rubble of a demolished building in the Syrian village of Bisnia on Wednesday. A man, his son and daughter were pulled out from beneath the rubble where they had been stuck for two days after a catastrophic earthquake.
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Visiting Kahramanmaraş, which was at the epicentre of the quake, Erdoğan said “On the first day we experienced some issues, but then on the second day and today the situation is under control”. Erdoğan promised the government aims to build housing within one year for those left without a home in the 10 provinces affected.
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Syria’s government has received help from a host of Arab countries including Egypt and Iraq, as well as from its key ally Russia, which has sent rescue teams and deployed forces already in Syria to join relief work, including in Aleppo.
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Syria has activated the EU civil protection mechanism, two days after the earthquake, to request further assistance from the 27-country bloc and the eight other nation states that are part of the programme. The European Union has has already mobilised search and rescue teams to help Turkey, while the bloc’s Copernicus satellite system has been activated to provide emergency mapping services. At least 19 member countries have offered assistance.
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Cold weather continues to be expected in the region with minimum and maximum temperatures for Kahramanmaraş today of -6C and 1C (21-34F), and for Gaziantep between -5C and 1C (23-34F). Diyarbakır is expected to have continued snowfall, with temperatures climbing to 2C (35F) at most.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the loss of life in the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has been “truly staggering, shocking”.
The US has deployed more than 150 search and rescue personnel to Turkey, he said.
Blinken added Washington will have more to say in days ahead about how the US will continue to support the Turkish and Syrian people.
The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) will launch an appeal on Thursday to raise urgent funds to help people affected by the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria which have killed more than 12,000 people.
The DEC brings together 15 leading aid charities at times of crisis overseas. Fourteen of these are responding in Turkey and Syria including British Red Cross, ActionAid and Save the Children.
Salah Aboulegasem, an aid worker for Islamic Relief in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, said colleagues have told him there is a shortage of body bags in Syria.
He told Sky News: “The difference between Turkey and Syria is that in Turkey there’s a co-ordinated effort to have the search and rescue – whereas in Syria, this doesn’t exist.”
The aid worker added that the situation in Syria was already tough.
“It’s been 13 years of war, there are already a million refugees on that border. These are the coldest months – all of this has made the situation more challenging than it is.
“This is not something that will end tomorrow, this is something that will go on for a long time.”
Earthquake death toll surpasses 12,000
The number of people killed in Turkey and Syria after the earthquakes has risen to at least 12,049.
Syria’s civil defence said at least 2,992 people had been killed in north-west Syria. It said there were more than 2,850 injured.
Earlier, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, said the toll in his country had risen to 9,057.
Istanbul’s stock exchange operator suspended trading for five days until 15 February in an unprecedented step and cancelled all trades from Wednesday in the wake of the earthquakes.
Turkey’s Borsa Istanbul suspended trading on its equity and derivatives markets within minutes of opening after market-wide circuit breakers stopped the slide in the main index at 7%.
The country’s benchmark index fell as much as 16% from its Friday close before the Wednesday trades were cancelled.
“Due to the increase in volatility and extraordinary price movements after the earthquake disaster; in order to ensure the reliable, transparent, efficient, stable, fair and competitive functioning of the markets, equity market and equity and index derivatives in the derivatives market have been closed,” Borsa Istanbul’s statement said.
“Considering the low transaction volume that does not allow efficient price formation, all trades executed in the closed markets on 8 February 2023 will be cancelled.”
“Rescue workers in Kahramanmaraş said they could smell corpses as they dug through piles of debris in the centre of a town now so devastated by the earthquake and its aftershocks that many buildings have been reduced entirely to rubble,” write Ruth Michaelson, Lorenzo Tondo and Deniz Barış Narlı.
“We hope there are two people still alive under there,” said Zafer Yildiz, a volunteer, pointing towards a pile of concrete, twisted metal and furniture. “Most of the people we found under the rubble were dead,” he said.
Mehmet Boskert carefully extracted a prayer book from the remains of a multistorey building, as he dug with gloved hands in the hope of finding his brother and sister-in-law alive.
“After I managed to dig myself out from the rubble when my house collapsed, I came here to try to find them,” he said. “I can only hope, but it seems too late. The emergency teams arrived too late, and only today did they bring these diggers. I hope they can do something.”
The energy firm E.ON has said the earthquake in southern Turkey has affected the supply area of the local power grid operator Enerjisa Enerji, of which it owns 40%, adding that repair work is under way.
“We are dismayed and saddened by the two major earthquakes in Turkey and Syria … they not only caused great human suffering and many deaths and injuries, but also massive damage to the infrastructure,” an E.ON spokesperson said in emailed comments.
“The supply area of our Turkish joint venture Enerjisa is also affected,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company mourned the loss of four employees, while others were wounded, some in a critical condition.
Turkey is working on opening two more border gates with Syria to enable the flow of humanitarian aid to the neighbouring country, its foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said.
Speaking to reporters, Çavuşoğlu said damage on the Syria side of the road leading to Cilvegözü border gate, solely open for humanitarian aid as part of United Nations security council authorisation, was causing difficulties in quake response.
“There are some difficulties in terms of Turkey’s and the international community’s aid [reaching Syria]. For this reason, efforts are being made to open two more border gates,” Çavuşoğlu said.
The Turkish carrier Pegasus Airlines has released the following statement:
“We continue to support those affected and to assist the work of aid organisations. Additional flights are being operated to and from earthquake-affected zones.
“We are continuing our efforts in coordination with AFAD (Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency) and official aid authorities to deliver aid and emergency supplies to the regions and evacuate those who are affected.
“Between 6 February and 8 February 2023 at 07:00 (local time), we operated a total of 22 relief flights, and 86 civilian passenger flights.
“To support those affected by the earthquake, all Pegasus Airlines direct domestic flights departing from Adana, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Malatya and Şanlıurfa between 7-12 February 2023 (up to and including) can be booked free of charge (no taxes payable).”
The airline added: “To support those affected by the earthquake, we have donated 5 million TL to AFAD (Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency). We have also donated 3 million TL to the Ahbap Association on behalf of Pegasus employees.
“To help animals affected by the earthquake, we have transported pet carriers in aircraft cabins to all the airports located in earthquake-affected zones.”
Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, is seeking political advantage from the earthquake, pressing for foreign aid to be delivered through his territory as he aims to chip away at his international isolation, analysts say.
Amid an outpouring of sympathy for Syrians hit by the earthquake, Damascus has seized the moment to reiterate its longstanding demand for aid to be coordinated with his government, shunned by the west since Syria’s war began in 2011.
Western powers have shown no sign they are ready to meet that demand or re-engage with Assad, but his hand has been strengthened by difficulties facing cross-border aid flows into Syria’s rebel-held north-west from Turkey, Reuters reports.
The aid flows, critical to 4 million people in the area, have been temporarily halted since the earthquake, although a UN official expressed hope that they could resume on Thursday. Damascus has long said aid to the rebel enclave in the north should go via Syria, not across the Turkish border.
“Clearly there is some kind of opportunity in this crisis for Assad, for him to show ‘you need to work with me or through me’,” said Aron Lund, a Syria expert at the Century Foundation.
“If he is smart, he would facilitate aid to areas outside his control and get a chance to look like a responsible actor, but the regime is very stubborn.”
