Smell of dead all over: Turkey-Syria quake toll touches 41,000, voices still being heard from under rubble
More than a week after the massive 7.8 earthquake struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, the death toll has crossed the 40,000 mark with voices still being heard from under the rubble in southern Turkey, offering a slight ray of hope of finding more survivors. Nine survivors were rescued from the rubble in Turkey on Tuesday and the focus of the aid effort has now been shifted to helping people now struggling without shelter or enough food in the bitter cold, reported news agency Reuters.
Rescue worker Salam Aldeen, who spent a week digging through the rubble in Antakya, Turkey, told USA Today international aid groups are helping desperate Turkish rescue teams working around the clock.
“I have never seen so much death and so many dead bodies in my entire life,” he said, crying as he spoke. “The conditions are like in an Armageddon movie; it’s unbelievable. The whole city smells of dead people,” Aldeen was quoted by USA Today as saying.
