THE temperatures sota zero they are complicating about the possibility of finding survivors alive earthquake a Turkey i Syria. If, as the hours pass, the chances of finding people under the rubble alive are running out, the fact that the thermometers drop in some places to the negative ten degrees it does not favor the chances of success at all. The adverse weather as well as the possibility of replicas, mean that rescue operations are being carried out against the clock. The latest death toll exceeds the 5.000; 3,500 in Turkish territory and the rest, in Syria.
The extreme temperatures affect the Turkish area hit by the earthquake more than the Syrian one. Many of those who have managed to get out alive are on the street with what they are wearing and ice cream. They confirm it dozens of oenagés who work in the area. Save The Children has emphasized the “thousands of boys and girls who have been forced to leave their homes in an icy night without shelter”. The director of this organization a TurkeySasha Ekanayake, has warned that the earthquakes have left thousands of people homeless in a context of “freezing weather and storms again”and has described it as “crucial” that the international community mobilizes immediately.
For the Middle East director of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Carsten Hansen, the earthquake has taken place in “the worst time of the year”.
“Did you find bread?”
The first call to prayer resonates a Sanliurfa after Monday’s deadly earthquake. In this city of South East of Turkeythe day has not yet begun and for many the gana already gang, as reported by France Press. “Have you found bread?” asks an elderly man, with a cap covering his head, before continuing on his way.
The streets they are empty. The mercury slightly exceeds 0 ºC, but the thermal sensation is negative. In the neighborhood, no business has yet raised its shutters. On Monday night, everyone was short of bread.
100 meters away, behind the fences of the imposing Hilton Hotel, where dozens of families found refuge after Monday’s deadly earthquake, the words ‘sopa’ i ‘pa’ they are on everyone’s lips. Some children play, although most continue to sleep on the tiles, warm in hoods and gloves. Many parents have already woken up or simply haven’t slept all night.
“The hotel gave us soup last night, but the night has already passed. We are hungry and so are the children,” 42-year-old Imam Çaglar told AFP. “The bakeries will be closed today, I don’t know how we will find bread”, he says worriedly pare of three children. He doesn’t even consider going to get groceries at his house, located a few streets away, for fear of the incessant aftershocks.
“We live on the first floor of three. We’re too afraid to go back,” he says, shaking his head. “Our building is not safe at all,” he adds.
«Small glass of soup»
“We get a small glass of soup, it’s not enough”, complains Mehmet Çilde, 56 years old and six children, who expects the municipal authority to distribute food.
“But we don’t have any information, nothing”, he says. Filiz Çifçi missed the soup distribution that took place on the eve a little further up the avenue.
The mother and her three children, who fled their apartment in the middle of the night on Monday with three blankets and the telephones, they preferred to skip a meal to wait in the wind and freezing rain. “We simply had tea and coffee last night, nothing more,” laments the girl in her thirties, wearing a mauve veil and robe, sitting near the hotel toilets.
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He does not know if the children will have enough to eat on Tuesday or in the coming days. “For now, we have nothing but our blankets,” he says.
He stops, thinks, and continues: “At least here, the water is drinkable.”