• UN warns number will rise significantly
• Syria pleads for help amid slow rescue efforts
• WHO seeks $42.8m funds
• Turkiye vows action against builders

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan continues to contribute to aid for Syria and Turkiye as death tolls from the devastating earthquake crossed 33,000 on Sunday.

According to the Pakistan International Airlines spokesperson, a special flight carrying five tons of relief goods landed in Turkiye on Sunday.

Separately, a team of doctors from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) has also been sent to the two nations. The 10-member team include anaesthetists, orthopaedics, neurosurgeons and paramedics, Pims Spokesperson Dr Haider Abbasi told Dawn.

On Sunday, Federal Education Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain called on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and briefed on the donations collected from educational institutions in Islamabad for the victims, according to APP.

‘Death toll to double’

According to officials, medics said 29,605 people had died in Turkiye and 3,574 in Syria from Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the confirmed total to 33,179.

UN relief chief Martin Griffiths, who arrived in Turkiye’s southern city of Kahramanmaras on Saturday, has said the death toll will rise significantly. When the toll stood at 28,000, he said it would “double or more” from its current level, according to AFP.

In an interview with Sky News, he said, “I think it is difficult to estimate precisely as we need to get under the rubble but I’m sure it will double or more.”

Contrasting rescue efforts It has been almost a week since one of the worst earthquakes, but the contrasting rescue efforts in the two countries have left grim hope of finding survivors in the conflict-hit Syria.

For the good part of the past six days, rescue officials had nothing but basic equipment to look for survivors under the mounds of rubble in Syria’s coastal town of Jableh, AFP reported.

“There is no hope” for survivors, said Alaa Moubarak, the head of Jableh’s civil defence.

Jableh is located in Latakia, a province largely under government control and one of the worst hit by the earthquake.

The only canine scavenging the rubble on Saturday was flown in by a 42-member search and rescue team from the UAE, equipped with sensors, search cameras, special drills and fuel containers.

“If we had this kind of equipment, we would have saved hundreds of lives, if not more,” said Moubarak.

Other teams on the ground lack the means and advanced search equipment, often digging with nothing but their hands or shovels.

Appeal for aid

The World Health Organi­sation (WHO) said almost 26 million people have been affected by the earthquake. It also launched a flash appeal for $42.8 million to cope with immediate health needs, Reuters reported.

China shipped 53 tonnes of tents to Turkiye on Sunday, with more emergency aid planned in the near future, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Qatar has announced

plans to send 10,000 cabins and caravans used during the World Cup to house people homeless in Turkiye and Syria, AFP reported.

The mobile homes were used for a few weeks when Qatar hosted the football World Cup last year. Officials have indicated after the tournament they would be donated. The first shipment is set to leave Doha port for Turkiye on Monday.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah sent a convoy of 23 trucks carrying food and medical aid to Syria where aid into the opposition-controlled territory has been held up by “approval issues”, a UN spokesperson said on Sunday.

The UAE has also pledged $13.6m to Syria before announcing another $50m in assistance.

Turkiye vows action

The Turkish government on Sunday vowed to thoroughly investigate builders, contractors or anyone suspected of responsibility for the collapse of buildings, Reuters reported.

Vice President Fuat Oktay said overnight that 131 suspects had so far been identified as responsible. “Detention orders have been issued for 113 of them.”

Environment Minister Murat Kurum said that 24,921 buildings across the region had collapsed or were heavily damaged in the quake.

Security fears

After teams from Germany and Austria, an Israeli emergency relief organisation also ended its operations in Turkiye and returned home because of a “significant” security threat to its staff, AFP reported.

“We knew that there was a certain level of risk in sending our team to this area of Turkiye, which is close to the Syrian border,” the organisation’s vice president of operations Dov Maisel said.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2023