JUST IN | Death toll rises above 20 000 in Turkey, Syria quake
The death toll from a massive earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria climbed to more than 20 000 on Thursday, as hopes faded of finding survivors stuck under rubble in freezing weather.
Footage from Turkey's Humanitarian Relief Foundation showed rescue workers looking into a narrow opening in the debris of a building in Antakya and pulling out the boy as he weptAn aid convoy reached rebel-held northwestern Syria on Thursday, the first since a devastating earthquake that has killed thousands, an official at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing told AFP.
The aid would be disbursed"through non-governmental organisations and the United Nations in all regions affected", foreign ministry spokesperson Francois Delmas said. Delmas said the aid for Syrians would in no way change France's"political approach" to President Bashar al-Assad's government, and that Paris still backed a political solution to end the conflict.Earthquake death toll in northwest Syria climbs to more than 1 930
Thousands of homes were destroyed on both sides of the border after the tremor and the subsequent aftershocks.The UN insisted Thursday on the need to avoid "politicisation" of aid to earthquake victims in Syria, which faces international sanctions, and urged Washington and Brussels to ensure there were "no impediments".
"We need to do everything to make sure that there are no impediments whatsoever to the life-saving support that is needed in Syria," Pedersen said. "We stand ready to further step up our support in close coordination with the Turkish authorities. Our thoughts will continue to be with you and your people," they said.
Nicholas Heras of the New Lines Institute of Strategy and Policy said mobilisation to help quake victims offers Assad an opportunity to restore ties with some Arab countries, but"this humanitarian crisis will not exonerate his regime in Western states". The first convoy of humanitarian assistance for northwest Syrians hit by the earthquake is en route to the southern Turkish border with the hope of crossing on Thursday, two aid sources told Reuters. People sit near a bonfire amidst the rubble of collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras, days after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southeast Turkey.
The death toll from Monday's 7.8-magnitude quake is expected to rise sharply as rescue efforts pass the 72-hour mark that disaster experts consider the most likely period to save lives. Tsai and Lai, who is widely expected to stand for the presidency in elections due next year,"hope to do their part to help Turkey rebuild its homeland as soon as possible", the presidential office said in a statement.
The sprawling scale of the disaster that flattened thousands of buildings, trapping an unknown number of people, has swamped relief operations already hampered by freezing weather. Still, searchers kept pulling survivors from the debris three days after the 7.8 magnitude quake that is already one of the deadliest this century, even as the death toll continues to rise.
Officials and medics said 9 057 people had died in Turkey and 2 662 in Syria from Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the total to 11 719.Twitter became inaccessible on major Turkish mobile providers on Wednesday as online criticism mounted of the government's response to this week's deadly earthquake.
"I have been waiting for news of my father, my mother, my brother, my sister and her son. Nothing is known about them so far," he said.
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