TURKIYE - The death toll from the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria is now at least 20,451, according to authorities. In Turkiye, the death toll has risen to at least 17,134 with 70,347 others reported injured on Thursday, according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD). The total number of deaths in Syria climbs to at least 3,317 — including 1,970 in rebel-held areas in the northwest according to the White Helmets civil defense group, and 1,347 deaths in government-controlled parts of Syria — according to Syrian state media. The total number of injured people in Syria across all affected territories rose to 5,245, with 2,295 in government-controlled and 2,950 in the rebel-held areas. At least 75,592 people have been injured in Syria and Turkey, according to figures from the Turkish government, the White Helmets and Syrian state media.
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An aid convoy reached rebel-held northwestern Syria Thursday, the first since a devastating earthquake that has killed thousands, an official at the Babal-Hawa border crossing said. “The first UN aid convoy entered today,” said Mazen Alloush, media officer at the crossing. Hopes were fading Thursday for rescuing survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, which has killed over 17,500 people in one of the deadliest tremors in decades. Bitter cold has hampered the four-day search of thousands of flattened buildings and the 72-hour mark that experts consider the most likely period to save lives has passed. Relatives were left scouring body bags laid out in a hospital car park in Turkey’s southern city of Antakya to search for missing relatives, an indication of the scale of the tragedy. “We found my aunt, but not my uncle,” said Rania Zaboubi, a Syrian refugee who lost eight members of her family, as other survivors sought loved ones’ bodies among the corpses. The 7.8-magnitude quake struck as people slept early Monday in a region where many people had already suffered loss and displacement due to Syria’s civil war. An official at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing told AFP that an aid convoy reached rebel-held northwestern Syria Thursday, the first since the earthquake that has left survivors sleeping outdoors due to aftershock risks. A decade of civil war and Syrian-Russian aerial bombardment had already destroyed hospitals, collapsed the economy and prompted electricity, fuel and water shortages.
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