Rescue workers and volunteers are searching for survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building in Şanlıurfa, Turkey (Photo: AFP). The death toll from the massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria rose above 11,200 on Wednesday as rescuers raced to save people trapped under debris in the winter cold. Officials and medics reported that 8,574 people had died in Turkey and 2,662 in Syria from Monday’s 7.8‑magnitude tremor, bringing the total to 11,236, Al Arabiya reports. As the scale of the disaster became clearer, the death toll was expected to rise considerably, with one UN official warning that thousands of children may have perished.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in ten provinces. Yet residents in several damaged Turkish cities expressed anger and despair over what they described as a slow and inadequate response from authorities to the deadliest earthquake in Turkey since 1999. “There is not even a single person here. We are under the snow, without a home, without anything,” said Murat Alinak, whose home in Malatya collapsed and whose relatives are missing. “What shall I do, where can I go?”
Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake, followed hours later by a nearly equally powerful aftershock, toppled thousands of buildings—including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks—injured tens of thousands, and left countless people homeless in Turkey and northern Syria. Rescue workers struggled to reach some of the worst‑hit areas, hampered by destroyed roads, poor weather, and a lack of resources and heavy equipment. Some areas were without fuel and electricity, forcing residents to sift through rubble without even basic tools in a desperate hunt for survivors.
Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria, already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of civil war. Erdogan declared ten Turkish provinces disaster zones and imposed a three‑month state of emergency that will allow the government to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms. The government will open hotels in the tourism hub of Antalya to temporarily house people impacted by the quakes, said Erdogan, who faces a national election in three months.
The death toll in Turkey rose to 5,894, Vice President Fuat Oktay announced, with more than 34,000 injured. In Syria, the toll was at least 1,932, according to the government and a rescue service in the insurgent‑held northwest.
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