Hopes of finding more survivors fade

Plaintive cries continue to be heard three days after initial jolt

ANTAKYA, Turkiye — The death toll from earthquakes that struck Turkiye and Syria this week surpassed 17,000 on Thursday, as hopes faded of many people being found alive 72 hours since the disaster and frustration simmered over the slow delivery of aid.

On the ground, many people in Turkiye and Syria spent a third night sleeping outside or in cars in freezing winter temperatures, their homes destroyed or so shaken by the quakes they were too afraid to reenter.

In Turkiye, footage emerged late on Wednesday of a few more survivors being rescued, including Abdulalim Muaini, who was pulled from his collapsed home in Hatay, where he had remained since Monday next to his dead wife.

In live TV coverage on Thursday, the state broadcaster TRT showed rescue workers pulling an injured 60-year-old woman from the rubble of an apartment block in the city of Malatya 77 hours after the first quake struck.

The first United Nations convoy carrying aid to Syrians stricken three days ago by a deadly earthquake crossed from Turkiye on Thursday, Reuters quoted witnesses and a border crossing official as saying.

The convoy entered Syria at the Bab Al Hawa crossing, the sources said. Turkish authorities said they would open other crossing points in two days if security was sound.

In Turkiye, many have complained of a lack of equipment, expertise and support to rescue those trapped, sometimes even as they could hear cries for help.

Further slowing the relief effort, the main road into the city of Antakya was clogged with traffic as residents who had finally managed to find scarce petrol sought to leave the disaster zone and aid trucks headed into the area.

Temperatures plunged to — 5 C in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, close to the epicenter of the earthquake, early on Thursday, but the cold did not stop thousands of families from spending the night in cars and makeshift tents, too scared to stay in their homes or prohibited from returning to them.

Parents walked the streets of the city, carrying their children in blankets because it was warmer than sitting in a tent.

"When we sit down it is painful, and I fear for anyone who is trapped under the rubble in this," said Melek Halici, who wrapped her 2-year-old daughter in a blanket as they watched rescuers working late into Wednesday night.

Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on a visit to the disaster zone on Wednesday that operations were now working normally, and no one would be left homeless, he said.

Infrastructure wrecked

In Syria, relief efforts are complicated by the conflict that has partitioned the country and wrecked its infrastructure.

"There are a lot of people under the rubble, there is no heavy equipment to pull them out and volunteer teams cannot work with light equipment," said Yousef Nahas, a resident of Salqeen, in Syria's northwest.

Syria's ambassador to the UN acknowledged that the government had a "lack of capabilities and lack of equipment".

El-Mostafa Benlamlih, the top UN aid official in Syria, said 10.9 million people had been affected by the disaster in the northwestern governorates of Hama, Latakia, Idlib, Aleppo and Tartus.

In Brussels, the EU is planning a donor conference next month to mobilize international aid for Syria and Turkiye.

"We are now racing against the clock to save lives together," the EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said.

"No one should be left alone when a tragedy like this hits a people."

Agencies Via Xinhua