Turkey-Syria earthquake live news: Death toll tops 15,000

By Zaheena Rasheed and Virginia Pietromarchi

Published On 9 Feb 20239 Feb 2023

• The death toll from the Turkey-Syria earthquakes has risen to more than 15,000.
• At least 12,391 people have died in Turkey, according to officials, while at least 2,992 have been killed in Syria.

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13 UpdatesAuto updates

• 2m ago (06:00 GMT)Photos: Syrians in quake-hit Gaziantep displaced againGaziantep, Turkey – For many Syrians living in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey, the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday have awakened traumatic memories of the 12-year war in their homeland.Gaziantep is about 33km (20 miles) east of the epicentre of the initial magnitude 7.8 quake, which devastated the city and surrounding areas. Many survivors have lost their homes and are living in makeshift shelters in open spaces.“We thought that living on the other side of the border would bring us to safety,” said Ahmad al-Rifai, 21, originally from Aleppo.“But we found ourselves reliving past traumas.”Read the full story here.Syrians and Turkish people displaced by the earthquake camp together, helping each other with food supplies and heating. Among them many are Syrian Turkmen from northern Syria, like Bakier Soulo, 28, who suffers from PTSD symptoms that have affected his language skills. [Abdulsalam Jarroud/Al Jazeera]
• 8m ago
•  (05:55 GMT)
• Twitter access in Turkey restored: internet watchdog
• Access to Twitter in Turkey has been restored, the Netblocks internet observatory has said.
• “The restoration comes after authorities held meeting with Twitter to ‘remind Twitter of its obligations on content takedowns and disinformation’,” Netblocks said.
• Turkish authorities raised concerns over disinformation online without providing formal explanation.
• The observatory first reported restrictions on the social media platform on Wednesday. Twitter’s owner Elon Musk had subsequently said that Turkey had indicated it would restore access to the platform soon.
• 22m ago
•  (05:42 GMT)
• ‘Smell of death everywhere’ as Syrian rescuers plead for supplies
• The Syrian Civil Defence group is calling for additional search and rescue equipment, describing the situation in rebel-held northwestern Syria as “tragic” and permeated with “the smell of death”.
• “The situation is tragic in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, hundreds of families are still under the rubble,” volunteer Asim Al-Yahya said, according to a tweet from the group, who are also known as the White Helmets.
• As rescue efforts cross the 72-hour mark, “there is a great shortage of search and rescue equipment,” he added.
• In a separate tweet, the White Helmets said “death hangs over the neighbourhoods of Salqin”, a town west of the city of Idlib. “The smell of death is everywhere.”
• 37m ago (05:26 GMT)Infrastructure to blame for high toll in SyriaA Syrian civil engineer in the northwestern city of Idlib told Al Jazeera that years of bombardment by government forces were to blame for the quick collapse of buildings following Monday’s earthquake.“The first reason for the quick collapse of the buildings in the Idlib and Aleppo countrysides is the violent attacks these cities suffered, with all kinds of heavy weapons over the past 10 years,” Saria Bitar said, referring to Syria’s war.“In eastern Aleppo, which previously suffered the worst types of strikes by the [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad regime, the destroyed buildings already had weak infrastructure,” he explained.Bitar, who heads the Hathi Hayati Volunteering Group, added that old buildings in Syria were also built without regard to natural disasters, while some newly built ones did not conform to technical and engineering regulations. One such example is the failure to put a sufficient number of metal rods in the foundations, he said.Read more on this topic from Ali Haj Suleiman’s dispatch from Jindires, Syria. 
• 1h ago (05:00 GMT)‘Racing against time’: Rescuers work through night in AleppoThe Syrian Civil Defence group continued search operations through the night in rebel-held parts of Syria as the rescue effort neared the 72-hour mark that disaster experts consider the most likely period to save lives.“We are racing against time. Every minute counts,” tweeted the opposition group, who are also known as the White Helmets.The group said hundreds of people remain trapped in the rubble in the town of Jandires in the province of Aleppo.
• 1h ago (04:19 GMT)Syrians denounce failed aid response after devastating quakeWhile countries from around the world have sent rescue teams and supplies to quake-stricken Turkey, little of that help has arrived in rebel-held parts of northwestern Syria, according to residents there.“I call on the international community, the Arab countries and the United Nations to urgently help us,” said medical volunteer Obaida Rannoush, who was standing by the Bab al-Hawa border crossing between Turkey and Syria.“More than 60 hours after the quake took place, there are still hundreds trapped under the debris. We cannot rescue them because of our meagre resources. We need heavy machinery, humanitarian and medical aid,” he said.Until now, not a single humanitarian convoy has crossed the border, he said.“We have not received any kind of assistance,” he stressed. “We are standing here by the border crossing to ask for humanitarian aid so we can save some of the people under the rubble.”Read more on the Syrian plight here.Men carry bodies of people who died following an earthquake, during their funeral in the rebel-held town of Jandaris, Syria February 7, 2023 [Stringer/ Reuters]
• 2h ago (03:55 GMT)Infographic: How big were the earthquakes in Turkey, Syria?The magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday are classified as “major” on the Richter scale.But what does it mean? How do earthquakes happen and how are they measured?Al Jazeera explains it all.Read more here.
• 2h ago (03:34 GMT)The man who survived an earthquake, and his family who didn’tReuters has this heartbreaking story from Turkey’s Hatay, where the agency’s photographer Umit Bektas witnessed rescuers trying to pull Abdulalim Muaini out from the rubble of his home.Abdulalim’s legs were trapped under a large slab of concrete but he was conscious and able to talk to his rescuers.Close beside him lay his wife, Esra. But the rescue had come too late for her.The Reuters photographer was not able to speak directly with Abdulalim but two of his friends were standing nearby. They said Abdulalim was of Syrian origin, from Homs. He had fled the civil war and married Esra, a Turkish woman. The couple had two daughters, Mahsen and Besira, they said. It was unclear what had happened to the girls.Rescues can take a long time and when Bektas returned to the scene hours later, he eventually saw Abdulalim successfully rescued. He was covered in grey dust, one eye was swollen and he was dehydrated and needed medical attention. But he survived.His family did not. On the ground lay three bodies wrapped in blankets – Esra, Mahsen and Besira.Abdulalim Muaini lies under the rubble next to the body of his wife Esra, in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, February 8, 2023 [Umit Bektas/ Reuters]
• 3h ago (02:48 GMT)‘Our children are freezing’: Survivours spending night in cars, tentsTemperatures in the quake-stricken Turkish city of Gaziantep plunged to minus five degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) early on Thursday but thousands of families spent the night in cars and makeshift tents, too afraid to return to their homes – or banned from doing so.Parents walked the streets of the city carrying children in blankets because it was warmer than sitting in a tent.“When we sit down, it is painful, and I fear for anyone who is trapped under the rubble in this,” said Melek Halici, who had wrapped her two-year-old daughter in a blanket as they watched rescuers working late into the night. “Eventually, we will have to go to the tent but I don’t want to,” she told the AFP news agency. “I can’t bear the cold but nor can I think about going back to our apartment.”Around the Halicis, smoke from dozens of fires filled the night air. Supermarkets and other businesses gave wooden pallets to families to burn. Some people found sanctuary with neighbours or relatives. Some left the region.But many have nowhere to go.Children stand in a street of Gaziantep, two days after a strong earthquake struck the region, on February 8, 2023 [Zein Al-Rifai/ AFP]Gyms, mosques, schools and some stores have opened up at night. But beds are still at a premium and thousands spend the nights in cars with engines running to provide heat.“I have no choice,” said Suleyman Yanik, as he sat with one child playing with the steering wheel, while his wife and another child slept in the back seat. “The smell is horrible, but we cannot go home,” he told AFP.Poor families who have been camping around Gaziantep’s sixth-century castle, badly damaged by the quake, said authorities have done nothing for them. The families have built makeshift homes with tarpaulin and wood thrown away by others.“They could at least have given us some tents,” said Ahmet Huseyin.“Our children are freezing,” added the 40-year-old father of five whose nearby house was virtually destroyed by the 7.8 magnitude tremor.“We have had to burn the park benches and even some of the children’s clothes. There was nothing else,” he said.
• 3h ago (02:08 GMT)How to donate to Turkey, Syria earthquake responseFor those seeking to donate to the earthquake response, charity groups and watchdogs advise taking the following steps.First, they recommend researching the charity to make sure they are reputable.Second, they recommend determining if a charity will be the most effective in responding to a given crisis.Third, they usually recommend giving cash, which offers chosen aid groups the most flexibility.
• 4h ago
•  (01:54 GMT)
• Elon Musk says Turkey to re-enable full Twitter access ‘shortly’
• Twitter Chief Executive Elon Musk says the Turkish government has informed his company that full access to the social media platform will be re-enabled “shortly”.
• The Netblocks internet observatory, which tracks connectivity across the globe, said on Wednesday that Twitter access had been restricted in Turkey two days after a huge earthquake killed thousands in southern parts of the country and in northern Syria.
• “Twitter has been informed by the Turkish government that access will be re-enabled shortly,” Musk tweeted, without providing further details on timing.
• 4h ago (01:53 GMT)Erdogan admits ‘shortcomings’ in quake reliefThe Turkish president has admitted to problems with his government’s initial response to the devastating earthquakes in southern Turkey, amid anger from those left destitute and frustrated over the slow arrival of rescue teams.“Of course, there are shortcomings,” Erdogan said during a visit to the city of Kahramanmaras, one of the hardest hit spots.“The conditions are clear to see. It’s not possible to be ready for a disaster like this.”
• 4h ago (01:46 GMT)Death toll rises above 15,000The death toll from the Turkey-Syria earthquakes has climbed above 15,000 as rescuers race to save survivors trapped under debris in freezing weather.Turkey’s Disaster Management Authority (AFAD) said 12,391 people had died in the country from Monday’s quakes, while 2,992 people have died in Syria, bringing the confirmed total to 15,383.
• SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES