Death Toll Rises To Over 22,000 In Turkey And Syria After Major Earthquakes

The following report is by the Wall Street Journal:

Aid poured into Turkey on Friday, the fifth day after earthquakes killed more than 22,000 people, as Turks and Syrians gathered for traditional prayers, buried the dead and reflected on their loss.

In the Turkish capital, Ankara, one of the country’s most senior clerics, Ali Erbaş, led prayer, as rescue teams continued to find survivors in the rubble and aid agencies sheltered thousands of displaced people on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border.

The subject of Friday’s sermon focused on national unity. “Let’s touch the hearts of each of our brothers affected by the earthquake and wipe their tears,” Imam Erbaş said in the weekly national sermon, which is approved by Turkey’s Muslim religious affairs authority and delivered in every mosque around the country.

In Turkey, the death toll of 19,388 has surpassed the figure of the 1999 earthquake that traumatized the nation and changed Turkish politics for decades. Authorities in Syria have reported 3,384 deaths. Thousands more people were injured in Monday’s magnitude-7.8 and -7.5 earthquakes.

Rescuers were still finding people alive under the wreckage of buildings Friday, more than 100 hours after the quakes, giving teams rare moments of joy amid the widespread destruction. 

In the 105th hour of the disaster, rescuers saved a baby boy and his 7-year-old brother in the province of Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the tremors, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency. Another found was a 36-year-old survivor who reunited with her husband in the southern Turkish province of Hatay, as well as two sisters who were pulled out alive near Kahramanmaras, the news agency reported. A video on the agency’s Twitter page showed a 32-year-old mother and her 10-year-old son being carried on stretchers down a pile of rubble by dozens of relief workers after being trapped for 101 hours. 

In Gaziantep, once a haven for refugees fleeing conflict in neighboring Syria, about 2,000 displaced people, mainly Syrians, gathered to hear the Friday sermon in the Ulu Cami Mosque, now doubling as their shelter. Some people had lost their houses in one of the worst-hit cities, but many just feared the collapse of their buildings and were seeking refuge in the mosque. 

The mosque is safe. There are lots of columns and at least if something happens you’re in God’s house.

Nouri Hamukhan, 24, a tailor from Aleppo who has lived in Turkey for a decade, said

Fatima Shaabi, a 45-year-old widowed mother of two, said she had come with her children to the ivory-colored mosque—its minarets undamaged—because she lives on the ground floor of a three-story building.

If it comes down, it comes down on me. I want to wait here until things calm down, as long as they allow us to stay.

Tens of thousands of Syrians settled in Gaziantep after the country’s civil war, which began in 2012. But illustrating the fresh tensions caused by the earthquake, a Turkish worshiper walking away from the mosque complained about a lack of space to pray because of Syrians. 

Religious leaders had turned off the heating, scared that aftershocks might spark a fire. Nearby restaurants were donating food twice a day. 

We pray to God for delivery for all those stuck in the cold and hungry and seeking relief from the loss of loved ones.

In Osmaniye, rudimentary coffins made of different woods were piled up in front of a mosque. At the morgue nearby, new bodies pulled from collapsed buildings arrived regularly. A 35-year-old mother and her two children, 15 and seven, were carried in coffins to the mosque for the funeral prayer, before they went to be buried in Osmaniye cemetery. Half an hour later, five other bodies arrived at the morgue, followed by their families.

The political consequences of such a disaster loom large for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is up for re-election this year after 20 years in power. The government response to a 1999 quake in Istanbul helped propel Mr. Erdogan, then the city’s young mayor, to the Turkish prime minister’s office and, eventually, the presidency.

The leader visited the southern city of Adiyaman on Friday and said Turkey was “facing one of the greatest catastrophes in our history.”

He said 141,000 people from 94 countries were part of the rescue effort, but the government had struggled to get aid to people fast enough because of the size of the area, the level of destruction and the cold weather. 

It’s a fact that we were not able to achieve the speed we desired in response.

Mr. Erdogan said.

The president reiterated a pledge made earlier this week that the government would rebuild every home destroyed within a year. He increased the amount of financial help offered, saying the government would give people affected by the quakes 15,000 Turkish lira, equivalent to $800, up from an earlier-announced 10,000 Turkish lira. He said the government also would give rent assistance to those without homes. 

The government has implemented state-of-emergency powers in the regions affected by the quakes and said it had deployed thousands of armed forces to the areas for disaster relief, flying 590 sorties of aircraft and helicopters. The country’s disaster-management agency said Friday it had evacuated 75,780 people from quake-hit regions.

A spokesperson for Turkish Airlines, which has evacuated tens of thousands of people from the quake-hit regions this week, said the evacuees were taken to hotels, state dormitories and guesthouses across the country that have volunteered to help.

Cargo planes of the Turkish armed forces, aircraft belonging to the national flag carrier, coast guard helicopters, and other private airlines and bus companies are all being used to transfer survivors to other parts of the country, the spokesperson said.

And as survivors leave the affected areas, aid is pouring in. 

On Friday, cargo planes were arriving around the clock at Gaziantep’s small airport, carrying relief supplies, heavy equipment and teams of humanitarian workers and medical personnel flowing into the country. Though 30 miles from the epicenter, the runway was left undamaged, unlike other airports in the earthquake zone, turning Gaziantep into a key hub for relief efforts, according to workers and officials.

Mehmet Ali, 21, a student from Gaziantep, said he volunteered to help unload supplies at the airport after classes at his university were suspended. He worked an 11-hour shift on Thursday, sleeping at the airport because his family apartment building has been declared off-limits by the government.

I am tired, but people need help and we have a chance to help.

He said

Mr. Ali said he had helped load donated clothes, blankets, food, medicine and generators onto trucks for distribution to villages and towns around the earthquake zone.

Only aircraft bringing relief supplies and those performing medical evacuation operations are being allowed to land. But so many are arriving that some planes are being diverted hundreds of miles because landing spots are unavailable.

At 1 a.m. local time Thursday, a C-17 cargo plane from the United Arab Emirates had to land at Adana, a three-hour drive from Gaziantep, because no landing spots were free. It was carrying water tanks, a mobile shower facility and a massive forklift that Emirates officials had shipped in to help unload supplies. 

The small VIP terminal at Gaziantep is serving as both a reception center for teams of relief workers and a makeshift dormitory for exhausted volunteers. On Friday, Saudi relief workers in green vests sat near Iranian volunteers in the terminal lounge. A table manned by United Nations personnel was set up by the door to process incoming volunteers.

In Syria, aid from the United Nations began to arrive in northwest Syria on Thursday, with trucks carrying shelter items and other supplies crossing the Bab al-Hawa border crossing that connects Turkey to the northwestern corner of Syria. 

The response effort there has been hindered by the country’s civil war, which has carved up territory for different groups. The U.S. military and others are working to get rescue teams and aid into the affected regions of Syria. 

The U.N. is preparing a rare delivery of aid to Syrian rebel-held territory from an area controlled by President Bashar al-Assad‘s government, said people familiar with the plans.

Some aid professionals dismissed the delivery as a publicity stunt designed to bolster Mr. Assad’s international profile at a time when he is trying to pressure Western governments to lift sanctions when the country is reeling.

Oubadah Alwan, a spokesman for the Syria Civil Defense group, known as the White Helmets, said the move “is PR and whitewashing in this moment of great media attention.” 

They have a history of weaponizing humanitarian aid.

He said

An adviser to the Syrian government said Damascus’ decision to grant access to a humanitarian convoy into enemy territory was designed to show good will. 

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

[7] And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. [8] For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

Mark 13:7-8

We have been given yet another clear “sign” that we are indeed living in “the beginnings of sorrows.”

Earthquakes, tremors, tsunamis, sinkholes and more have been rapidly occurring so often and increasingly every year there are simply too many to keep track of. This one just so happens to have caused a super large amount of deaths, and much more expected as the Turks and Syrians unbury themselves out from the rubble.

Turkey and Syria have already been having boatloads of issues in all avenues prior to these earthquakes, with Turkey’s inflation already going to the moon. Now it will be incalculable. Therefore, in order to cope with the losses, except to see war breakout in the area, and other nations using this as an opportunity as a land grand to cover the losses.

But don’t get high-minded, my fellow airheaded Americans and Westerners: these judgments are headed our ways next…

[20] Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: [21] For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. [22] Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

Romans 11:20-22

Are You Awake? Are You Ready For What’s Coming? Do You Loathe The Honeycomb??

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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