Rescuers are searching for victims and survivors amid the rubble of collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that up to 23 million people could be affected by the massive earthquake that has killed thousands in Turkey and Syria, and pledged long‑term assistance.
“Event‑overview maps show that potentially 23 million people are exposed, including around five million vulnerable populations,” WHO senior emergencies officer Adelheid Marschang said. She added that civilian and health infrastructure have been damaged across the affected region, mainly in Turkey and northwest Syria. Marschang told the WHO executive committee in Geneva that “the main unmet needs may be in Syria in the immediate and mid‑term.”
Rescuers in Turkey and Syria are braving freezing cold, aftershocks, and collapsing buildings as they dig for survivors buried by a series of quakes that have killed more than 5,000 people. “It is now a race against time,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, explaining that the UN health agency is urgently sending aid to the area. “We’re mobilising emergency supplies and have activated the WHO network of emergency medical teams to provide essential health care for the injured and most vulnerable.”
Disaster agencies report that several thousand buildings have been flattened in cities across a vast Turkey‑Syria border region, compounding misery in an area already plagued by war, insurgency, refugee crises, and a recent cholera outbreak. Through the night, survivors used their bare hands to sift through the twisted ruins of multi‑storey apartment blocks, trying to save family, friends, and anyone else who was sleeping inside when the first massive 7.8‑magnitude quake struck early Monday.
The situation is particularly dire in northern Syria, which has already been decimated by years of war. “The movement of aid through the border into northwest Syria is likely to be—or already is—disrupted due to the damage caused by the earthquake,” Marschang said, noting that this would constitute a huge crisis in itself. She addressed a special meeting on the tragedy, which observed a minute’s silence for the victims.
The WHO chief vowed that the agency will “work closely with all partners to support authorities in both countries in the critical hours and days ahead, and in the months and years to come as both countries recover and rebuild.”
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