Rescuers carry out a person from a collapsed building after an earthquake in Adana, Türkiye on February 6, 2023.Rescuers carry out a person from a collapsed building after an earthquake in Adana, Türkiye on February 6, 2023.
In Kahramanmaras, close to the epicentre in south Türkiye, there were fewer visible rescue operations amid the smashed concrete mounds of fallen houses and apartment blocks where trucks rumbled through streets shipping out debris. Erdogan promised to start rebuilding cities within weeks, saying hundreds of thousands of buildings were now uninhabitable, while issuing stern warnings against looters.In the rebel enclave of northwest Syria that suffered the country’s worst damage from the earthquake but where relief efforts are complicated by civil war, very little aid had entered despite a pledge from Damascus to improve access.Inhabitants joined official rescuers.
At one building in Kahramanmaras, rescuers burrowed between concrete slabs to reach a five year-old girl, lifting her on a stretcher, wrapped in foil, and chanting “God is great”.But though several other people were reportedly saved from the rubble on Saturday including 13 year-old Arda Can Ovan, few rescue efforts were resulting in such success.