The number of people who have died after the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has risen to at least 23,700. Many rescue teams are on the scene in Turkey. They are still looking for survivors. Providing aid in Syria remains very difficult.
Read the live blog about the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria from Friday here.
The death toll in southeastern Turkey has risen to 20,213. More than 3,500 deaths have been reported in Syria. At least 80,000 people have been injured in Turkey. Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless. The search for survivors continues, but the chances of finding them after 72 hours are minimal.
Yet people are still being pulled alive from under the rubble. For example, the Dutch rescue team USAR rescued an eight-year-old boy. The boy, Ibrahim, was under the rubble for 108 hours and was taken to hospital.
Rescue workers in the Turkish province of Hatay have also rescued six people from the same family. That happened 102 hours after the quake. The family was buried under the rubble of a collapsed five-story building.
The parents were taken to hospital along with their four children aged between 15 and 24. Some neighbors of the family have also been rescued. They have been under the rubble for 107 hours. The Syrian baby Aya who was rescued in recent days is now recovering.
Erdogan acknowledges that authorities fell short
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says authorities have not responded to the earthquakes as quickly as the government would have liked. He first admitted this on Friday during his visit to the hard-hit city of Adiyaman.
Critics believe that not enough rescue workers were deployed in the first days. They also believe that insufficient humanitarian aid has been provided. The president said in Adiyaman that his government has failed in this, as he said earlier. But with his recognition he now went a step further.
Erdogan has repeatedly promised shelter and long-term financial support to the victims.
Ontvang meldingen bij nieuws over de aardbevingen in Turkije en Syrië
Syrian president visits disaster area
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has made his first public appearance since the earthquakes. The president visited a hospital in Aleppo with his wife, where he spoke with victims.
It is unlikely that Al Assad will also visit other affected areas in Syria. They are in the hands of rebels fighting against the Syrian government army. Due to the civil war in Syria, aid to the affected areas is difficult.
Still, reports are surfacing that the president has authorized rescue workers to provide assistance, including in places outside his authority. That is “cautiously good news,” writes the BBC.
However, that does not mean that the aid troops will arrive in Syria soon. This is because there are heavy Western sanctions on the country and because Al Assad is not in power throughout the country.
More and more help from the Netherlands
The amount that Dutch municipalities give for emergency aid after the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria rose to more than 5 million euros on Friday. Most municipalities transfer the money to Giro555. To date, about fifty municipalities have pledged to donate 1 euro per inhabitant. At the beginning of the evening, the counter stood at approximately 5.25 million euros.
In addition to monetary donations, a lot of stuff is also collected. All kinds of clothing, tents and blankets, but also toys for children and medicines. There is also a completely different picture: coffins and body bags are sent from Dordrecht to the disaster area.
Dutch people who want to be evacuated from the disaster area surrounding the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria can contact the Turkish disaster relief organization AFAD. That organization has published a list of places where they can register for evacuation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports.
