Gift of the Givers on standby to fly out to earthquake-hit Turkey and Syria

Aid organisation, Gift of the Givers says search-and-rescue teams are already on standby to fly out to earthquake-hit Turkey and Syria by Tuesday at the latest.

A massive earthquake struck central Turkey and northwest Syria on Monday, pulverizing apartment blocks and heaping more destruction on Syrian cities already devastated by years of war, killing over 1400 people and injuring thousands.

According to the organisation, the Turkish ambassador to South Africa, Aysegul Kandas, has contacted them directly to assist with relief efforts.  The organisation says its teams abroad have already evacuated children from a childcare centre in Gaziantep, Turkey, while in Darkoush in Syria, its medical teams are responding to the quake.

Turkey has declared a state of emergency as rescuers race to save people trapped beneath the rubble.

Search and rescue efforts following earthquakes in Turkey and Syria: Aysegul Kandas

Another humanitarian organisation, the Al-Imdaad Foundation, has also dispatched emergency aid to Turkey and Syria. The foundation’s international projects coordinator Ziyaad Patel says their teams based in Turkey are providing relief and assisting with search and rescue efforts.

“The Al-Imdaad Foundation has a strong presence there. We work very actively there. We know pretty much the entire terrain. The moment the earthquake struck that part of Turkey, immediately we activated our emergency response protocol and immediately we began to facilitate relief aid to those individuals, those areas, and those communities that have been affected.”

Death toll 

The magnitude 7.8 quake, which hit in the early darkness of a winter morning, worst to strike Turkey this century.

It was also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon. It was followed in the early afternoon by another large quake, magnitude 7.7.

It was not immediately clear how much damage had been done by the second quake, also felt across the region as rescue workers were struggling to pull casualties from rubble in bitter weather.

“We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home. Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I’m waiting for them,” said a woman with a broken arm and injuries to her face, speaking in an ambulance near the wreckage of a seven-storey block where she had lived in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said 912 people were killed, 5 383 injured, and 2 818 buildings had collapsed in Turkey. Erdogan said he could not predict how much the death toll would rise as search and rescue efforts continued.

“Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts although winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night makes things more difficult,” he said.

Live footage from Turkish state broadcaster TRT showed a building collapse in the southern province of Adana after the second quake.

It was not immediately clear if the building was evacuated. In Syria, already wrecked by more than 11 years of civil war, the health ministry said more than 326 people had been killed and 1 042 injured.

In the Syrian rebel-held northwest, rescuers said 221 people had died.

In Diyarbakir, Reuters journalists saw dozens of rescue workers searching through a mound of debris, all that was left of a big building, hauling off bits of wreckage as they looked for survivors.

Occasionally they raised their hands and called for quiet, listening for sounds of life. Men carried a girl wrapped in blankets from a collapsed building in the city. “We woke up to a big noise and severe shaking. -Additional reporting by Reuters