Appeal for $1B in aid

UN funds will provide relief to 5.2 million affected by earthquakes in Türkiye

NEW YORK: The United Nations launched on February 16 an appeal for $1 billion to help victims in Türkiye catastrophic earthquake that killed thousands of people and left millions more in desperate need of aid. Day earlier, the world organisation also called for a $397 million appeal to help quake victims in Syria.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that the funds would provide humanitarian relief for three months to 5.2 million people. The money would ”allow aid organisations to rapidly scale up vital support,” including in the areas of food security, protection, education, water and shelter, he added.

”The needs are enormous, people are suffering and there’s no time to lose,” Guterres implored. ”I urge the international community to step up and fully fund this critical effort in response to one of the biggest natural disasters of our times.”

The death toll in Türkiye stands at 38,044, making it the deadliest disaster in the country in a century. The toll in Syria has reached 5,814, bringing the total death toll from both countries to over 43,858 on February 16. More than 9 million people in Turkey have been directly impacted by the disaster, according to Ankara. Turkey’s people have experienced ”unspeakable heartache,” the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said in a separate statement announcing the flash appeal.

”We must stand with them in their darkest hour and ensure they receive the support they need,” added Griffiths, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

OCHA said in its statement that hundreds of thousands of people, including small children and elderly people, are without access to shelter, food, water, heaters and medical care in freezing temperatures.

It added that some 47,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged across Turkey, with thousands of people having sought refuge in temporary shelters.

The UN is delivering hot meals, food, tents, warm winter clothing, blankets, mattresses, kitchen sets and medical supplies to affected areas, OCHA said.

The United Nations earlier provided $50 million to relief efforts through its central emergency response fund. The potential economic effects of the earthquake in Türkiye could result in a loss of up to one percent of the country’s gross domestic product this year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said in a report published.

Disease monitoring

Turkish health officials working with World Health Organisation (WHO) personnel step up monitoring of waterborne diseases, seasonal influenza and Covid-19 among those displaced by the February 6 earthquake and powerful aftershocks.

Turkish medical personnel across the earthquake-hit southeastern Türkiye are working to avert the outbreak of diseases in the evacuation centres where tens of thousands of people are seeking shelter, according to TRT World. In Kahramanmaras, the epicentre of quake and powerful aftershocks, doctors are offering tetanus shots to residents and also distributing hygiene kits.

The mobile field hospital, which was established by the Turkish National Defense Ministry, has served around 1,000 patients since the third day of the earthquake. A total of 74 personnel, including 10 military physicians, are on duty in 21 tents and 19 containers installed in the Necip Fazil City Hospital parking lot.

Mustafa Gerek, the head of military health services, said that the field hospital has many areas such as an intensive care unit and operating rooms. “…unfortunately, the state hospital we are in could not start its activities fully because it was damaged in the earthquake. Our field hospital met the biggest need here,” Gerek said.

Miracle rescues continues

Eleven days into the quake — one of the deadliest in the past 100 years — rescuers have pulled a 12-year-old boy and two men out of the rubble, more than 260 hours of the earthquake.

The boy was rescued from the rubble of a building in the central Antakya city of Hatay province at 260th hour of the first earthquake that hit Türkiye on February 6 morning, local media reported late on Thursday. Osman Halebiye, a foreign national, was pulled from the ruins of Buket Apartment in Ekinci district.

Two more people were pulled alive from the rubble in the same province but such rescues have become increasingly rare. Both men, Mehmet Ali Sakiroglu, 26, and Mustafa Avci, 34, were rescued from the rubble of a building in Antakya district at 261st hour of the first 7.7 magnitute quake.

Seventeen-year-old Aleyna Olmez, was pulled from the debris of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras province 248 hours after an earthquake hit southeasterm Türkiye as hopes of finding more survivors fade.

Courtesy: AFP and TRT World