We will now be closing the blog. Here is a summary of events so far.
The death toll from the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria climbed to more than 33,000 on Sunday, with the United Nations warning that the final number may double. Officials and medics said 29,605 people had died in Turkey and 3,574 in Syria bringing the confirmed total to 33,179, Agence France-Presse reports.
The UN’s emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said “we have failed the people in north-west Syria” and they “rightly feel abandoned”. His Twitter post continued the people of Syria were: “Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived. My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can. That’s my focus now.”
Turkish authorities have issued more than 100 arrest warrants over collapsed buildings. State media reported that at least 12 people were in custody, including contractors, architects and engineers connected to some of the tens of thousands of buildings destroyed or seriously damaged in Monday’s 7.8- and 7.6-magnitude quakes.
British donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal have topped £60 million in just three days. The total amount so far of £60.3 million includes £5 million in UK Aid Match from the UK government.
There have been extraordinary rescue stories to emerge from Turkey, including a 10-year-old girl who was pulled from a collapsed building in the south-eastern Turkish province of Hatay, after 147 hours, according to rescuers. Meanwhile, the health minister of Turkey, Dr Fahrettin Koca, tweeted a short clip of a young girl that he said had been pulled from the rubble “in the 150th hour” in Hatay, Turkey.
The UK’s development minister, Andrew Mitchell, has said the situation following the earthquake is “bleak beyond belief”. On the subject of the UK’s aid to Syria, which was halved from around £180m in 2020 to £90m in 2021, Mitchell defended the cut, adding that the aid budget will increase once the economy improves.
The German government wants to temporarily ease visa restrictions for survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria who have close family ties to Germany if they are facing homelessness or were injured.
Randa Ghazy, the MiddleEast regional media manager at Save the Children, told the BBC in the long term there would be a “second disaster” as the rescued struggle to survive.
Oubadah Alwan, a spokesperson for the Syria Civil Defence, a volunteer group also known as the White Helmets, told the BBC the situation in Syria was “very difficult” and the catastrophe the country now faces could have “definitely been avoided if we had some help earlier on”.
Humanitarian groups working in southern Turkey and north-west Syria warn that Monday’s earthquake will have a “long tail” – a wide range of needs that will require donations for months, or even years, after the rescue and recovery missions end, the Associated Press reports.
Greece’s foreign minister, Nikos Dendias, offered his condolences to the people of Turkey when he visited the country on Sunday. His arrival marks the first visit by a European minister since the earthquake.
China shipped 53 tonnes of tents to aid earthquake-hit Turkey on Sunday, state broadcaster CCTV said.
Updated
Humanitarian groups working in southern Turkey and north-west Syria warn that Monday’s earthquake will have a “long tail” — a wide range of needs that will require donations for months, or even years, after the rescue and recovery missions end, the Associated Press reports.
Avril Benoît, executive director for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) USA said: “There’s a long tail to an emergency like this, both for the injured from the earthquake, but also for chronic disease management, making sure they have access to their medications.”
People will die without access to medications to control chronic illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes, she said, adding that the earthquake will also take a mental toll.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said they had 5,200 volunteers mobilised on both sides of the border, with the Turkish operation being more robust and better-equipped because of its longstanding programme to support Syrian refugees.
The IFRC is already planning its recovery efforts over 12 months, with recurring assessments to define the scope.
Trauma response and sanitation issues are among the top priorities.
Updated
A British firefighter, who helped in pulling a police officer and a woman from the rubble of a building in Turkey five days after the country was devastated by an earthquake, has spoken of the rescue operation.
Phil Irving, 46, from Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, was part of the team who took part in the painstaking extraction, which ended on Saturday with the pair being brought out alive after being trapped for 120 hours under under a collapsed multi-storey building in Hatay, southern Turkey.
The father-of-two told the PA News Agency the battle to save them and their determination to stay alive “will stay with me”.
“These people were entombed in rubble and debris and we had to work around the clock to bring them out alive,” he said.
“It was Friday afternoon when we first discovered signs of life. We knew 100 per cent that they were alive.
“We were hearing them tapping and shouting so we knew we were close to them but reaching them was a major challenge.
“It was a catastrophic collapse and access was difficult.
“They were trapped in there for over five days and it will stay with me their incredible capacity to keep going, hope and believe.”
He added that a successful rescue provokes “mixed” emotions, adding:
If you rescue one person and they are reunited with a relative, generally speaking that person has left a loved one in the building, who has not been so lucky. It is generally a bitter-sweet moment.
Of course, when we are successful in getting someone out it gives the team a boost, but I don’t think you ever have a rescue that is not moderately tarnished with the bigger reality that the survivor will have to deal with grief for the people that didn’t make it.”
The watch manager at Haverfordwest station has been a firefighter for almost 24 years and a volunteer with UK International Search and Rescue (UK-ISAR) for 17 years, and was part of the 2009 Indonesia and 2010 Haiti earthquake responses.
He said it “hurts my heart to see the devastation” caused to families and their homes.
“I stand back and I look at the people who have lost their homes and their families and my heart bleeds for them.”
Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, thanked the United Arab Emirates for its emergency response and tens of millions pledged in aid to the quake-hit country, the presidency said.
“The UAE was among the first countries that stood with Syria and sent huge relief and humanitarian aid and search and rescue teams,” Assad said during a meeting on Sunday in Damascus with Emirati foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.
Nahyan arrived in Syria on Sunday, Agence France-Presse reports.
His visit is the first by a senior Gulf official since the 7.8-magnitude quake hit.
The UAE minister last visited Damascus in January, when he also met Assad, a trip signalling warming ties with war-torn Syria after years of strained relations.
The UAE pledged about $13.6m to Syria after the disaster before announcing another $50m in assistance.
The oil-rich Gulf nation has dispatched planes to Turkey and Syria with emergency aid, food, medical supplies and rescue teams.
“Sixteen Emirati planes have arrived in Syria since the earthquake hit,” said Suleiman Khalil, an official at Syria’s transport ministry.
“Around the clock, Emirati planes have been providing an air bridge for those affected by the earthquake.”
The Emirati search and rescue team has been based in the Syrian coastal city of Jableh since Friday, where they have set up a base camp.
Updated
British donations to DEC earthquake appeal top £60m
British donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal have topped £60m in just three days.
The total amount so far of £60.3m includes £5m in UK Aid Match from the UK government.
DEC Chief Executive Saleh Saeed said:
The support across the country in stadiums, high streets and communities is testament to the incredible compassion and generosity of the British public and we’re incredibly grateful. The images we have all seen and heard from Turkey and Syria has shocked us all, and the desire to help is shining through.
DEC charities are stepping up aid delivery, knowing they have the support of the British public to do all they can to help. We are all determined to do all we can to support those affected both in the short and longer term and it’s inspiring to have the backing of the British public.”
Updated
Earthquake death surpasses 33,000
The death toll from the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria climbed to more than 33,000 on Sunday, with the United Nations warning that the final number may double.
Officials and medics said 29,605 people had died in Turkey and 3,574 in Syria bringing the confirmed total to 33,179, Agence France-Presse reports.
Updated
Here is a video showing rescuers pulling a 10-year-old girl from a collapsed building in the south-eastern Turkish province of Hatay, six days after an earthquake devastated the region.
Video released by the Istanbul municipality showed rescuers pulling the girl through a hole in a floor of a damaged building before carrying her out on a stretcher.
She had been buried for 147 hours, according to rescuers.
Also in Hatay, rescuers pulled a small child from the rubble of a collapsed building. A video released by the Turkish health ministry showed the child lying silently on a stretcher, bruised and covered in dust, as rescuers carried her to safety.
In central Hatay, a man and his five-year-old daughter Emira were also recovered alive from a destroyed building.
Video released by the Kocaeli Municipality on Sunday showed rescuers talking to Emira and her father while they were still trapped under debris.
“Hello beautiful girl, we are here to take you out,” one of the rescuers said.
About 180km (110 miles) to the north of Hatay, in the city of Kahramanmaras, 27-year-old Muhammed Habib recited the Qur’an to rescuers during a 10-hour operation to extricate him.
Video posted on social media showed Habib pumping his fist in the air, yelling “God is greatest”, to the cheers of rescuers below as he was finally winched out by machine
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The German government wants to temporarily ease visa restrictions for survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria who have close family ties to Germany if they are facing homelessness or were injured.
German interior minister, Nancy Faeser, tweeted on Saturday: “It’s about helping in times of need. We want to make it possible for Turkish or Syrian families in Germany to bring close relatives from the disaster region.”
“They can find shelter with us and receive medical treatment. With regular visas, which are issued quickly and are valid for three months.”
Not all the requirements of a regular visa procedure are being waived. Applicants must still be able to present a valid passport, likely to be an obstacle for people who fled collapsing buildings.
Several million people in Germany have Turkish roots as more than 60 years ago, West Germany recruited “guest workers” from Turkey and elsewhere to help the country advance economically.
More recently, hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees came to Germany looking for safety from the civil war back home.
Turkish and Syrian immigrants in Germany have been collecting aid and sending donations to relatives back home, and calls to allow them to take in close family members from the devastated regions had been growing for days.
The German government said it would ease the normally very strict and bureaucratic visa conditions quickly, adding the foreign ministry had already both increased its staff in Turkey and redeployed capacity at visa acceptance centers there.
Earthquake victims who wish to seek refuge in Germany and want to apply for a three-month visa need to prove they have close family members in Germany who have German citizenship or a permanent right of residence, German news agency dpa reported.
The German host family member must submit a declaration promising to pay for the living expenses and subsequent departure of the person taken in.
Here are some images coming to us over the wires.
Turkish authorities have issued more than 100 arrest warrants over collapsed buildings, amid warnings that the death toll from the earthquake that struck parts of Turkey and Syria could double from the current tally of 28,000.
State media reported that at least 12 people were in custody, including contractors, architects and engineers connected to some of the tens of thousands of buildings destroyed or seriously damaged in Monday’s 7.8- and 7.6-magnitude quakes.
The situation in stricken north-west Syria, already ravaged by more than a decade of civil war and where international aid has been slow to arrive, is becoming increasingly desperate, the United Nations has said.
As public anger continued to mount in Turkey at the scale of the destruction and the pace of the rescue efforts, the arrests are likely to be seen as an attempt by the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who faces tough elections in May, to deflect blame.
Turkey’s vice-president, Fuat Oktay, said early on Sunday that authorities had so far identified 131 people suspected of being responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened, and that detention orders had been issued for 113 of them.
“We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and caused deaths and injuries,” Oktay said. Special investigation units have been set up in the 10 provinces affected.
The environment minister, Murat Kurum, said that based on an initial assessment of more than 170,000 buildings, 24,921 across the region had collapsed or were heavily damaged by the quake.
Opposition leaders have long accused Erdoğan’s government of not enforcing building regulations and of failing to account for the proceeds of special levy imposed after the 1999 İzmit earthquake to ensure apartment blocks and offices were more quake-resistant.
The president has accused his critics of lying and in remarks so far has seemed to blame fate for the disaster, saying such catastrophes “have always happened” and are “destiny’s plan”. He has pledged to start rebuilding within weeks.
Read the full report here.
Greece’s foreign minister Nikos Dendias offered his condolences to the people of Turkey when he visited the country on Sunday.
His arrival marks the first visit by a European minister since the earthquake.
During a press conference in Antakya with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Dendias said:
I would like to convey to the Turkish leadership and the Turkish people the warmest condolences of the Mitsotakis government and the entire Greek people for the losses after the two devastating earthquakes.”
Çavuşoğlu added:
This is showing the solidarity of Greek people with Turkey and the Turkish population. Greece was one of the first countries to call and propose help to Turkey after the earthquake,”
Greece and Turkey have a history of rivalry going back centuries, exacerbated by territorial and energy disputes - more recently by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s threats of invasion.
Oubadah Alwan, a spokesperson for the Syria Civil Defence, a volunteer group known as the White Helmets told the BBC the situation in Syria was “very difficult” and the catastrophe the country now faces could have “definitely been avoided if we had some help earlier on.”
He said their volunteers are very “spread very thin,” and it was “too much” for one organisation to cope with.
“The catastrophe has definitely put us way over capacity,” he said. “We’re dealing with a population of four million people … it is way too much for one kind of organisation to handle.
He echoed the UN aid chief Martin Griffith’s comments that the international community had failed north-west Syria.
Alwan said:
Disappointment and abandonment is definitely a general feeling. We’re seven days into the earthquake. Our organisation has been calling for help, for manpower, for rescue equipment and in the first couple of days, we were just ignored and were left to deal with the situation on our own.
Machines were breaking down, volunteers were digging people out with their own hands.
The catastrophe at this scale could have definitely been avoided if we had some help earlier on.”
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Charity warns of 'second disaster' as rescued struggle to survive
Randa Ghazy, the middle east regional media manager at Save the Children told the BBC long term there would be a “second disaster” as the rescued struggle to survive.
She said the charity has been delivering hot meals, water, blankets and mattresses, adding that many people “are still sleeping in their cars.”
Ghazy said they were also offering “psychosocial support” to children to “overcome this trauma”.
“It’s been a bit of a challenge to reach some of the rural areas in Hatay due to security challenges, but we are here to stay,” she said.
She added:
Of course, in the long term, there will be a second disaster, which is the survival of those who managed to get out of the rubble, supporting them and supporting children in accessing for example, education, with all the schools closed. And having a warm shelter. We are here to make sure that all children of course, are safe and protected and their families as well.”
Updated
Earthquake aid from government-held parts of Syria into territory controlled by hardline opposition groups has been held up by approval issues with Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a United Nations spokesperson told Reuters on Sunday.
The Syrian government last week said it was willing to send aid into the northern zone, which is largely held by the hardline Islamist HTS and was devastated by Monday’s earthquake.
A spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian aid office told Reuters “there are issues with approval” by HTS, without giving further information.
A UN spokesperson in Damascus declined to comment, saying the UN “continues to work with relevant parties to have access to the area.”
There was no immediate response from the HTS media office to a request for comment.
Young girl rescued alive from rubble after 150 hours, Turkish health minister says
Among the devastation, there have been extraordinary rescue stories.
The health minister of Turkey, Dr Fahrettin Koca tweeted a short clip of a young girl that he said had been pulled from the rubble “in the 150th hour” in Hatay, Turkey.
In the tweet, he said: “The first medical intervention for our little girl, who was rescued from the rubble in the 150th hour, was performed in our Hatay Field Hospital. As a paediatrician, we oversaw the process. Our baby was sent to Adana by helicopter ambulance for treatment.”
Enkaz altından 150. saatte kurtarılan minik kız çocuğumuza ilk tıbbi müdahale Hatay Sahra Hastanemizde gerçekleştirildi. Bir çocuk hekimi olarak sürece nezaret ettik. Yavrumuz tedavi için helikopter ambulansla Adana’ya gönderildi. pic.twitter.com/lXFwND9i1G
— Dr. Fahrettin Koca (@drfahrettinkoca) February 12, 2023
Another rescue was of Abdullah Elali, a Syrian who has been living in Antakya who was reportedly rescued after 151 hours. He was pulled from the rubble in Hatay, south Turkey.
The Guardian has not been able to verify this.
Updated
The people of north-west Syria have been 'failed' - UN aid chief
The UN’s emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths has said “we have failed the people in north-west Syria” and they “rightly feel abandoned.”
In a Twitter post he added:
Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.
My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.
That’s my focus now.”
At the #Türkiye-#Syria border today.
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) February 12, 2023
We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria.
They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.
My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.
That’s my focus now.
On Saturday he spoke of the “devastating” scenes he had witnessed in Turkey as he visited the quake-hit areas.
What I saw today in #Türkiye was devastating.
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) February 11, 2023
What were once homes, filled with families and memories, now lay contorted and tangled.
Our thoughts are with those affected and we will continue to support in any way we can. pic.twitter.com/bhMDR1oEGN
Updated
More from Sky’s interview with the UK’s Andrew Mitchell.
On the subject of the UK’s aid to Syria, which was halved from around £180m in 2020 to £90m in 2021, Mitchell defended the cut, adding that the aid budget will increase once the economy improves.
He said:
It will go back up to 0.7% when the two fiscal tests that were set down by Rishi and confirmed by parliament are met. I can’t tell you precisely when that will be because it’s not clear how quickly the economy is going to recover,” he says.
The economy has suffered significantly from Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine and also, of course, from the aftermath of Covid. So I can’t give you an answer to that.
But what I can tell you is that my job is to try and make sure that we have multipliers which augment the money that we can use. And we are doing that as fast as we possibly can.”
The UK’s development minister Andrew Mitchell has said the situation following the earthquake is “bleak beyond belief”.
Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, he said he believed the current death toll of 28,000 was an underestimation.
“I’m afraid so, it is bleak beyond belief. It is the worst crisis, the worst earthquake that we face certainly since Nepal, probably since Haiti.”
He agreed with estimates that the UN emergency coordinator Martin Griffiths gave yesterday that the death toll could hit 50,000, adding he believed it “is the right figure, I fear, that we are going to see”.
He said that there was well-organised rescue operation in Turkey and “lessons have been learned” since Haiti.
On the quake-hit areas of northern Syria he said it is “much more difficult to get help and relief” there and because of the lack of infrastructure in the ungoverned areas people there are in “very deep jeopardy” in below-freezing temperatures.
He said that two flights had departed on Saturday night, one from RAF Brize Norton and one from Dubai taking tents and blankets to Turkey “and much of that, of course, is bound for Syria,” he added.
He added:
It is in Syria that the international community is far more stretched. We were able to get through the one crossing that is open for the UN, but that crossing too was badly damaged in the earthquake and because of the Russian veto the UN cannot use the other three crossing out of Turkey into Syria. So it is in Syria where the real problems lie.”
China has shipped 53 tonnes of tents to aid earthquake-hit Turkey on Sunday, state broadcaster CCTV said.
The tents departed Shanghai on large cargo planes and are scheduled to arrive in Istanbul later on Sunday, the broadcaster added, Reuters reports.
The first batch of supplies from China’s government, 40,000 blankets, arrived in Istanbul on Saturday, according to CCTV.
It added that the country is planning to send medical equipment, including electrocardiogram machines, ultrasound diagnostic instruments, medical vehicles and hospital beds in the near future.
A rescue team of 82 members dispatched by the Chinese government arrived in Turkey on Wednesday, CCTV reported.
Turkey issues 133 arrest warrants over building construction
Arrests warrants have been issued for 113 people in connection with the construction of buildings that collapsed in Monday’s earthquake, officials in Turkey have said.
Turkish police have already taken at least 12 people into custody, including building contractors.
While more arrests are likely, some critics are suggesting it is an attempt to divert blame for the disaster, as experts have consistently warned many new buildings in Turkey were unsafe.
The BBC reports that government policies allowed “amnesties” for contractors who didn’t adhere to building regulations, including in earthquake-prone areas, in a bid to spark a construction boom.
Greece’s foreign minister Nikos Dendias arrived in Turkey on Sunday in a show of support, the ministry said, despite a longstanding rivalry between the two Nato countries.
Dendias was met by his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, according to footage on state-run ERT TV, before they boarded helicopters to visit the quake-hit regions, Agence France-Presse reports.
His arrival marks the first visit by a European minister to Turkey since the earthquake.
The two ministers are travelling to Antakya, where Greek rescuers are helping with search and rescue operations.
The ministry said he will also visit members of the Greek Aid Mission in the country.
So far, the Greek government has sent 80 tonnes of medical and first aid equipment.
According to the ministry, the foreign minister will also discuss ways Greece can give further assistance to Turkey.
Good morning.
As the rescue efforts continue following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, here is a summary of recent events.
The death toll from Monday’s earthquake has surpassed 28,000. Turkish vice president said last night the death toll in his country had risen to 24,617. The Agence France-Presse has reported there has been 3,553 death in Syria.
UN emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths said the death toll from the earthquake is likely to “more than double”, adding that he expected tens of thousands more deaths. He visited the Turkish province of Kahramanmaraş on Saturday, describing the earthquake as the “worst event in 100 years in this region”
Search operations continue, and in Turkey’s southeastern province of Hatay, a Romanian rescue team carried a 35-year-old man named Mustafa down a pile of debris from a building, broadcaster CNN Turk said, about 149 hours after the quake.
A spokesman for the UN secretary-general has told the BBC it was time “to put all politics aside” to deliver aid to Syria, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, added that it was “hard to imagine a more complex emergency” in Syria.
The WHO’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reportedly visited Aleppo on Saturday
Turkey’s president, Tayyip Recep Erdoğan, has warned that looters will be punished after reports of people taking goods in earthquake-hit areas. Turkish authorities arrested 48 people for looting or trying to defraud victims, state media reported on Saturday.
Turkish police have detained 12 people over collapsed buildings in the southeastern provinces of Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa, including building contractors, following the huge quake that hit Turkey, local media reported on Saturday.Turkish officials issued more than 100 arrest warrants in connection with the poor construction of buildings that collapsed in Monday’s earthquakes in Turkey.
Facing questions over his handling of Turkey’s most devastating earthquake since 1939, President Tayyip Erdogan promised to start rebuilding within weeks, saying hundreds of thousands of buildings were wrecked.
The European Union’s envoy to Syria urged Damascus not to politicise issues of humanitarian aid, rejecting accusations as “unfair” that the bloc had failed to provide sufficient help to Syrians. “It is absolutely unfair to be accused of not providing aid, when actually we have constantly been doing exactly that for over a decade and we are doing so much more even during the earthquake crisis,” Dan Stoenescu told Reuters.
A border gate between Turkey and Armenia opened for the first time in 35 years on Saturday to allow aid to reach those affected in southern Turkey, state-owned Anadolu news agency and a diplomat said
Turkish energy company Karadeniz Holding said on Saturday it would send two humanitarian aid ships that can each house 1,500 people, to help the relief effort in the southern province of Hatay, Turkey, Reuters reports
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