Death toll from earthquake in Turkey and Syria could reach more than 50,000, UN aid chief says 

A UN aid chief has said the death toll from catastrophic earthquakes which hit Turkey and Syria this week could double to more than 50,000 as he admitted ‘we haven’t really begun to count the dead’. 

Five days on from the 7.8 and 7.7 magnitude earthquakes, it has been confirmed that at least 25,000 people have died with tens of thousands more injured. 

UN emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths told Sky: ‘I think it is difficult to estimate precisely [how many have died] as we need to get under the rubble but I’m sure it will double or more.

‘That’s terrifying. This is nature striking back in a really harsh way.’

He added: ‘We haven’t really begun to count the number of dead.’

Almost 26 million people have been affected by the deadly earthquake that ravaged Turkey and Syria this week, the WHO said on Saturday, warning that dozens of hospitals had been damaged.

As the death toll from the quake rose above 25,000, the UN health agency launched a flash appeal asking for $42.8 million to help it address the immediate, towering health needs.

The World Health Organization, which has already released $16 million from its emergency fund, increased its estimate of those affected to nearly 26 million today, with 15 million affected in Turkey and nearly 11 million in war-torn Syria.

This includes more than five million people considered to be particularly vulnerable – some 350,000 of whom are elderly people and more than 1.4 million children.

Mr Griffiths said that although the most likely period to find survivors of an earthquake are in the first 72 hours, on Saturday some people were still being rescued from the rubble.

He described the choice of when to end the rescue mission as ‘incredibly difficult’, adding that the international support for quake-hit Turkey is ‘phenomenal and heartening.’

On Saturday survivors were still being pulled from underneath huge piles of rubble, including some entire families who had been stuck for more than 130 hours. 

Melisa Ulku, a woman in her 20s, was extricated from the rubble in Elbistan in the 132th hour since the quake, following the rescue of another person at the same site in the same hour. 

Ahead of her rescue, police announced that people shouldn’t cheer or clap in order to not interfere with other rescue efforts nearby. She was covered in a thermal blanket on a stretcher. 

Just an hour earlier, a 3-year-old girl and her father were pulled from debris in the town of Islahiye, also in Gaziantep province, and soon after a 7-year-old girl was rescued in the province of Hatay.

Mr Griffiths highlighted that ’90 percent’ of the population in Syria is living in poverty and that years of civil war make it much harder for the country to cope with the disaster.

‘The awful truth about Syria from a humanitarian perspective is that the needs of the people of Syria grow each year and despite generous funding, we fail to meet those needs.’ 

New figures released on Saturday showed at least 22,327 people are confirmed to have died in Turkey, which pushed the total number of dead across the region, including government and rebel-held parts of Syria, to 25,880.

The WHO estimated that in Turkey, where more than 4,000 buildings have collapsed in the quake, 15 hospitals had suffered partial or heavy damage.

In Syria, where the health care system had already been ravaged by 12 years of civil war, at least 20 health facilities across the hard-hit northwest, including four hospitals, had sustained damage.

This is making it all the more difficult to help the tens of thousands of people who have been injured in the disaster.

Rescue teams from all around the world, including more than 70 specialist search and rescue workers from the UK, have rushed to the region to try and reach as many survivors as possible before time runs out.

It is estimated that survivors can live for up to a week under the rubble, and teams have turned to thermal imaging and sniffer dogs to help find them.

Teams from Austria, Germany and India are among those who remain in the area, alongside British rescuers.

The British team includes firefighters, a structural engineer to assess the danger of sites, and four sniffer dogs. 

Steve Davies, 51, from Gower, Swansea, in South Wales was one of 77 specialists sent as part of the UK International Search and Rescue Team (UK-ISAR) to provide lifesaving support to the country.

The father of two, who has worked in a number of disaster areas, said it is one of the most ‘horrific’ he has seen.

He said: ‘It is heartbreaking. It has been tough.

‘Everybody is saying how totally horrific this one is and how widespread the impact is.

‘That’s the hardest part as a rescuer – having to walk past sites where people are begging you to try and go in and look for their family but we know our dogs have been over and there’s no chance of us saving a life.

‘We’ve got to try and save as many people as we can because time is so precious.’

While emergency medical services have been overwhelmed with trauma patients, essential health services have been severely disrupted, the WHO warned.

The UN agency said there was a dire need for immediate trauma care, post-trauma rehabilitative care, essential medicines, prevention and control to prevent disease outbreaks and access to mental health support.

It said in a statement: ‘WHO’s goal is to save lives in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, to minimise its downstream health consequences, including mental health, and to rapidly restore essential health services across all earthquake-affected populations.’

The agency added that it had flown 37 metric tonnes of trauma and emergency surgery supplies to Turkey on Thursday, while 35 metric tonnes had arrived in Syria on Friday.

‘These life-saving supplies will be used to treat and care for 100,000 people as well as for 120,000 urgent surgical interventions in both countries,’ it said.

A third flight carrying a similar load was scheduled to reach Syria on Monday.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, arrived in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo on Saturday, bringing with him 35 tons of medical equipment, state news agency SANA reported. 

He said another plane carrying an additional 30 tons of medical equipment will arrive in the coming days.

He tweeted that he was ‘heartbroken to see the conditions survivors are facing… freezing weather and extremely limited access to shelter, food, water, heat and medical care’. 

The opposition Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said Saturday that it ‘is almost impossible to find people alive.’

The total death toll in Syria’s northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the White Helmets. 

The overall death toll in Syria stood at 3,553 on Saturday, though the 1,387 deaths reported for government-held parts of the country hasn’t been updated in days.