Teams race to find earthquake survivors

NURDAGI, Turkey — Rescuers raced against time early Wednesday to pull survivors from the rubble before they succumbed to cold weather two days after an earthquake tore through southern Turkey and war-ravaged northern Syria.

The death toll climbed above 7,700 and was expected to rise further.

But with the damage spread over a wide area, the massive relief operation often struggled to reach devastated towns, and voices that were crying out from the rubble fell silent.

Monday’s magnitude 7.8 quake and a cascade of strong aftershocks cut a swath of destruction that stretched hundreds of miles across southeastern Turkey and neighboring Syria. The shaking toppled thousands of buildings and heaped more misery on a region wracked by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis.

One temblor that followed the first registered at magnitude 7.5, powerful in its own right.

Khalil Hamra, Associated Press

Rescue teams evacuate a survivor Tuesday from the rubble of a destroyed building in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey.

Unstable piles of metal and concrete made the search efforts perilous, while freezing temperatures made them ever more urgent as worries grew about how long trapped survivors could last in the cold.

The scale of the suffering — and the accompanying rescue effort — was staggering.

More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the debris in Turkey alone, and some 380,000 took refuge in government shelters or hotels, said Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay.

Many took to social media to plead for assistance for loved ones believed to be trapped under rubble. Turkish authorities said the information was being relayed to search teams.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected, and he declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. Turkey was already grappling with an economic downturn.

Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergencies officer with the World Health Organization, said up to 23 million people could be affected in the entire quake-hit area, calling it a “crisis on top of multiple crises.”

Emrah Gurel, Associated Press

Rescue workers search for survivors Tuesday on a collapsed building in Malatya, Turkey.

Teams from almost 30 countries headed for Turkey or Syria. The United Nations said it is “exploring all avenues” to get supplies to rebel-held northwestern Syria.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the road leading to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing from Turkey was damaged, temporarily disrupting aid delivery to the rebel-held northwest.

Dujarric said the U.N. is preparing a convoy to cross the conflict lines within Syria, but that would likely require a new agreement with President Bashar Assad’s government, which has laid siege to rebel-held areas throughout the civil war.

Volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets have years of experience rescuing people from buildings destroyed by Syrian and Russian airstrikes in the rebel-held enclave, but they said the earthquake overwhelmed their capabilities.

Mounir al-Mostafa, the deputy head of the White Helmets, said they were able to respond efficiently to up to 30 locations at a time but now face calls for help from more than 700.

“Teams are present in those locations, but the available machinery and equipment are not enough,” he said, adding that the first 72 hours were crucial for any rescue effort.

IHA via AP

An aerial photo shows the destruction Tuesday in Hatay city center, southern Turkey.

Nurgul Atay told The Associated Press she could hear her mother’s voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province. But rescuers did not have the heavy equipment needed to rescue her.

“If only we could lift the concrete slab, we’d be able to reach her,” she said. “My mother is 70 years old, she won’t be able to withstand this for long.”

Residents of Hatay accused the government of not rushing rescuers there fast enough, while the Turkish presidency has rejected such criticism as disinformation.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 1,647 people were killed in Hatay alone, the highest toll of any Turkish province. At least 1,846 people had been rescued as of Tuesday evening, he said. Hatay’s airport was closed after the quake destroyed the runway, complicating rescue efforts.

Turkey has large numbers of troops in the border region and tasked the military with aiding in the rescue efforts, including setting up tents for the homeless and a field hospital in Hatay province.

A navy ship docked on Tuesday at the province’s port of Iskenderun, where a hospital collapsed, to transport survivors in need of medical care to a nearby city.

A large fire at the port, caused by containers that toppled over during the earthquake, sent thick plumes of black smoke into the sky. The Defense Ministry said the blaze was extinguished with the help of military aircraft, but live footage broadcast by CNN Turk showed it was still burning.

The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.