Turkey-Syria earthquake: Rescuers flood into Hatay at last – but face a scene of mind-blowing devastation
The tempo of the earthquake rescue operation has changed dramatically in Hatay in southern Turkey.
The province near the Syrian border is one of the areas most impacted by the multiple earthquakes which struck Turkey and Syria this week – if not the worst-hit area.
And the massive scale of the destruction here is utterly mind-blowing.
Now, after days of repeated cries for help and multiple complaints about lack of action and help for the area, it is now flooded with volunteers, aid workers, military police and civil society groups.
Turkey-Syria earthquake – updates: Number of dead nears 12,000
There’s a constant hum of helicopters flying overhead and the scream of sirens everywhere.
There is a stream of ambulances zipping up and down Ataturk Avenue, the main road into the provincial capital, Antakya.
And on Wednesday there are now scores of excavation vehicles and mechanical diggers in the area, as well as winches and cranes to lift the piles of rubble in every corner of this city.
Crushed cars underneath a collapsed building in Hatay, southern Turkey, following a devastating earthquake
President Erdogan has flown into the earthquake zone today.
His first stop was Kahramanmaras in the southeast, where he admitted there had been mistakes on day one of the relief operation.
He didn’t offer any explanation for the mistakes but insisted everything was now under control.
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Turkish President: Response was slow
Heartbreaking line to read labels on bodies
Certainly, the people of Hatay have seen a marked influx of personnel and aid groups to the area in contrast to the previous two days when there appeared to be woefully little.
But such is the scale of this disaster here, they can’t get too much help right now.
We saw several lines of dead bodies lying on pavements; outside apartment blocks, and placed in the centre of fields.
Search and rescue teams attempt to clear the rubble
Sometimes they’re just covered in blankets but others have labels stuck on them.
There’s a heartbreaking line of people checking the labels to see if it’s their loved one who has been found.
One man fell in a heap on the black bag as he recognised the name. This mass mourning means there’s no embarrassment in grief and it is rarely private.
Few have homes to retreat to now so he sobbed long and hard, sitting next to the corpse, unable to wrench himself away.
Bodies pulled from the rubble are put in black bags
Survivors too scared to sleep indoors
These past few days have jettisoned Turkey into a dystopian nightmare where there appears to be no safety, and no end to the suffering.
Within a split second, so many homes were transformed into concrete coffins – crushing the inhabitants and traumatising the survivors.
Multiple tremors and aftershocks followed the main earthquake, including a separate second quake which brought down even more buildings or left them seriously structurally unsound.
It has meant thousands and thousands of people are far too scared to sleep indoors or return to their homes – and that’s IF the buildings are in a fit state to return to.
They’re sleeping rough in vehicles if they have them or on the pavements. Some have found shelter in tents which are rapidly being put up.
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Women are crying and destruction is everywhere
Residents gather around a fire near to a collapsed building
And yet amid the hourly struggle to just survive this disaster – to find food, keep warm, and keep clean – many relatives are focusing on finding and saving those loved ones they haven’t yet found.
Many insist they can still hear noises from beneath the rubble.
The human body has an incredible capacity to survive. Hope is harder to crush than an eight-storey building, it seems.
‘No help’ as dead made to wait
The urgent search for the living means the dead are having to wait right now.
We saw residents scurrying past groups of bodies laid out on the pavements.
Death doesn’t shock Antakya’s people in quite the same way as it did on 6 February.
But despite the dramatic change in relief efforts here, there are still multiple concerns about the disorganised rescue operations and how they are being conducted.
“We have had no help,” one woman told us. “Those bodies have lain there [on the pavement] for two days now.
“Why do they not clear them?”
She immediately launched into an angry tirade against two volunteers passing by with uniforms on, urging them to come and help clear the collapsed building where her relatives still are.
British team ‘keen to save lives’
We saw a 76-strong team of British search and rescue volunteers who landed in the area and within half an hour had fanned out across four different zones in Antakya to assess the situation and draw up a plan of action to help.
They are the first international team we have spotted here.
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British experts join the search and rescue efforts
We’re told others have arrived from Russia and Israel – 45 countries have offered their help – but we have seen none on the ground yet in Hatay.
That is until the team of British firefighters trained in search and rescue arrived.
They brought with them four sniffer dogs and specialised search and rescue equipment.
“We’ve been keen to get started,” one of the team told us.
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British rescue dogs aid quake search
Dog handler Neil Woodmansey said: “We are a heavy rescue team and we have the dogs and the equipment and we’re hoping to make a difference.
“The only reason we are here is to try to save lives.
“There’s always hope and there’s lots of evidence to suggest people in the right conditions survive for quite some time so that’s what we’re here for.”
By Alex Crawford, reporting from Hatay in southern Turkey with cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Guldenay Sonumut.
World
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The COP29 climate talks have reached a last ditch deal on cash for developing countries, pulling the summit back from the brink of collapse after a group of countries stormed out of a negotiating room earlier.
The slew of deals finally signed off in the small hours of Sunday morning in Azerbaijan includes one that proved hardest of all – one about money.
Eventually the more than 190 countries in Baku agreed a target for richer polluting countries such as the UK, EU and Japan to drum up $300bn a year by 2035 to help poorer nations both curb and adapt to climate change.
It is a far cry from the $1.3trn experts say is needed, and from the $500bn that vulnerable countries like Uganda had said they would be willing to accept.
But in the end they were forced to, knowing they could not afford to live without it, nor wait until next year to try again, when a Donald Trump presidency would make things even harder.
Bolivia’s lead negotiator Diego Pacheco called it an “insult”, while the Marshall Islands’ Tina Stege said it was “not nearly enough, but it’s a start”.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said: “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country.
“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So this is no time for victory laps.”
The funding deal was clinched more than 24 hours into overtime, and against what felt like all the odds.
The talks were rocked from the start by the incoming presidency of climate denier Mr Trump, the moment Argentina’s team were recalled back to Buenos Aires by their right-wing president and a controversial letter that sent shockwaves through the United Nations.
Pic: AP
The fraught two weeks of negotiations pitted the anger of developing countries who are footing the bill for more dangerous weather that they did little to cause, against the tight public finances of rich countries.
A relieved Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, climate envoy for Panama, said there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Just hours ago, the talks almost fell apart as furious vulnerable nations stormed out of negotiations in frustration over that elusive funding goal.
They were also angry with oil and gas producing countries, who stood accused of trying to dilute aspects of the deal on cutting fossil fuels.
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Climate-vulnerable nations storm out of talks
The UN talks work on consensus, meaning everyone has to agree for a deal to fly.
A row over how to follow up on last year’s pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels” was left unresolved and punted into next year, following objections from Chile and Switzerland for being too weak.
A draft deal simply “reaffirmed” the commitment but did not dial up the pressure in the way the UK, EU, island states and many others here wanted.
Saudi Arabia fought the hardest against any step forward on cutting fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change that is intensifying floods, drought and fires around the world.
Governments did manage to strike a deal on carbon markets at COP29, which has been 10 years in the making and will allow countries to trade emissions cuts.
‘Not everything we wanted’
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The UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said the deal is “not everything we or others wanted”, but described it as a “step forward”.
“It’s a deal that will drive forward the clean energy transition, which is essential for jobs and growth in Britain and for protecting us all against the worsening climate crisis,” he added.
“Today’s agreement sends the signal that the clean energy transition is unstoppable.
“It is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century and through our championing of it we can help crowd in private investment.”
Protesters at the summit in Baku. Pic: AP
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The Azerbaijan team leading COP29 said: “Every hour of the day, we have pulled people together. Every inch of the way, we have pushed for the highest common denominator.
“We have faced geopolitical headwinds and made every effort to be an honest broker for all sides.”
At least 20 people have been killed and 66 injured in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dig through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
The attack destroyed an eight-storey residential building and badly damaged several others around it in the Basta neighbourhood at 4am (2am UK time) on Saturday.
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack and has not commented on the casualties.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack – the fourth targeting the city centre this week.
A separate drone strike in the southern port city of Tyre this morning killed two people and injured three, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The victims were Palestinian refugees from the nearby al Rashidieh camp who were out fishing, according to Mohammed Bikai, spokesperson for the Fatah Palestinian faction in the Tyre area.
Israel’s military warned residents today in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs that they were near Hezbollah facilities, which the army would target in the near future. The warning, posted on X, told people to evacuate at least 500 metres away.
The army said that over the past day it had conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. It said it hit several command centres and weapons storage facilities.
Pic: AP
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, at least 3,670 people have been killed in Israeli attacks there, with more than 15,400 wounded.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
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‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike
Meanwhile, six people, including three children and two women, were killed in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.
Some 44,176 Palestinians have been killed since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
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