Dilara Senkaya/Reuters
The death toll from Monday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake on the Turkey-Syria border has topped 11,000 and is climbing as aid agencies warn the coming days could be the worst yet. Hope for those still trapped alive under the rubble has grown dim as freezing temperatures and forecast snowstorms complicate chances for survival.
The World Health Organization warned of a serious risk of survivors in remote areas now freezing to death without electricity, food, water, or shelter. “We don’t have a tent, we don’t have a heating stove, we don’t have anything. Our children are in bad shape. We are all getting wet under the rain and our kids are out in the cold,” Aysan Kurt, 27, told the Associated Press. “We did not die from hunger or the earthquake, but we will die freezing from the cold.”
Many aid agencies and NGOs working in the region fear the death toll could increase substantially due to a lack of amenities for those who lost homes. “We are already receiving reports of casualties among children and the elderly falling ill and dying because of the cold,” Ahmed Mahmoud, Islamic Relief’s country director for Syria, told Middle East Eye. “People in tents are burning anything they can find. Some are accidentally setting their tents on fire or suffocating from the fumes they are burning to stay warm inside the tents.”