- Rescue efforts following last week’s deadly earthquake have stopped.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered $100 million in new humanitarian relief.
- The end of rescue operations came as Blinken traveled to Turkey.
Turkey said on Sunday that rescue efforts following last week’s deadly earthquake have stopped in all but two districts, as visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered $100 million in new humanitarian relief.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that slammed southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6 killed almost 44,000 people, with the likelihood of finding survivors two weeks out exceedingly remote.
Yunus Sezer, the chief of Turkey’s disaster service, said on Sunday that search and rescue efforts had been completed in all provinces except Hatay and Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the earthquake.
Sezer stated that search and rescue efforts in the provinces continued on the 14th day, but that the number was likely to decrease by late Sunday.
The agency’s chief also said that Turkey’s death toll had increased to 40,689. The total death toll, including those killed in Syria, is currently 46,377.
Long-term effort
The end of rescue operations came as Blinken traveled to Turkey to express solidarity with a NATO ally and launch a new $100 million humanitarian package.
Washington’s top diplomat met with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, at the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, where the US has transported help.
Blinken then accompanied Cavusoglu in a helicopter to inspect the disaster’s devastation in Hatay province.
The new aid “will be moving soon. Sadly, it’s less about search and rescue but long-term recovery,” Blinken told reporters.
“This is going to be a long-term effort. It’s going to take a massive effort to rebuild but we’re committed to supporting that effort,” he said.
Washington had now contributed $185 million in assistance to Turkey and Syria, he added.
The trip had been planned before the earthquake, the worst natural disaster to hit Turkey in its post-Ottoman history.
We still have hope
Three dead were recovered from one building in the damaged southeastern city of Antakya, with a woman still believed to be inside, an official briefed on the rescue work told sources on condition of anonymity.
The scent of decaying carcasses and a cloud of dust hovered in the air at the recovery site in the city’s northwest, just off Republic Avenue.
An excavator sorted through the rubble in front of the four-story apartment building, the front of which had been ripped off by the earthquake.
Husseyin Yavuz told sources in Antakya that he had been looking for his cousin’s body under the wreckage for days and that the search should continue.
“We’ve been here since the day of the earthquake. With God’s help, we still have hope,” he said.
Adile Dilmet, sitting next to Yavuz, was on the point of tears as she remembered waiting outside in the cold for more than a week as the authorities barred residents from entering their homes.
However, she told sources that families were also urged to evacuate their homes before the structures were demolished, and she demanded that the dead be recovered first.
“We’re suffering here… What are we going to do?”
Rocky relations
Blinken’s itinerary for his first travel to Turkey since taking office in 2021 includes meetings with authorities managing the delivery of American help and a tour of the Hatay humanitarian operation.
Relations between the United States and Turkey have been tense in recent years, but Washington has considered Ankara as useful in its role as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine since Moscow’s invasion last year.
Blinken will meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Monday, with two concerns expected to be on the table.
Turkey wishes to purchase F-16 fighter fighters, but the transaction is being stymied in the US Congress due to worries over Turkey’s human rights record and threats to neighboring Greece.
Blinken will also likely bring up Turkey’s refusal to ratify Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership applications.
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