Aid workers on the ground in Turkey and Syria have described the “grim” devastation caused by this week’s earthquake as they called on the British public to donate to a new charity appeal.
Salah Aboulgasem, who is working for the charity Islamic Relief in Gaziantep, southern Turkey, arrived 14 hours after the earthquake struck 21 miles east of the city.
He said: “I’ve been working in the humanitarian space for more than 15 years. I’ve been to many disaster zones and I’ve been to many warzones, and I have to say that the size and the scale of this is unprecedented.”
Mr Aboulgasem spoke of his shock at visiting Nurdagi, a nearby town of 50,000 people where he said 70% of buildings had been flattened.
We did a distribution yesterday of blankets and I have never seen blankets be taken as quickly as they were yesterday. It was unbelievable. It just shows how cold people are now— Salah Aboulgasem, Islamic Relief
“Looking around, there were search and rescue operations going on everywhere,” he said.
“Everywhere you looked there was a search and rescue going on. The buildings had completely collapsed. It was shocking to see it.”
He added that survivors are so terrified of buildings collapsing in aftershocks that they are remaining out on the streets and living in tents.
Mr Aboulgasem said: “People are cold, very, very cold. People who had buildings or were living in shelters that have not been destroyed, psychologically, emotionally and understandably they are not willing to return to those.
“We did a distribution yesterday of blankets and I have never seen blankets be taken as quickly as they were yesterday. It was unbelievable. It just shows how cold people are now.”
The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is co-ordinating a joint rapid fundraising response by 14 charities including Islamic Relief, as well as the British Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children.
The Government has said it will match any donations made by the public up to a total of £5 million.
The DEC said it expects humanitarian needs to grow over the coming days, with access to shelter, clean water and warmth all potential issues.
There are huge numbers of people trapped under buildings and we are getting more and more worried about their survival— Oben Coban, Save the Children
Oben Coban, who is working in Turkey for Save the Children, told the PA news agency that two million children have been affected by the earthquake, which he described as the worst in Europe for a century.
“The situation on the ground is grim,” he said. “What we see this morning is a much clearer picture of the immense devastation and destruction of whole cities.
“This might have been the biggest tragedy in the last 100 years in the whole of Europe. Ten cities were impacted and it was on a scale of 450km, it is so widespread.
“There are huge numbers of people trapped under buildings and we are getting more and more worried about their survival.”
He added: “We are still hearing miracle stories. We are still getting a small number of people taken out of the debris alive, especially children.
“Our people on the ground were hearing the sounds of people who were trapped under buildings for the first two days, but now we are losing that.”
Dr Wassel Al-Jerk, a doctor working with medical charity SEMA in north-western Syria, said more than 400 buildings in the region have collapsed and at least 1,700 people killed.
He said: “The situation is miserable in north-western Syria. It is very comparable to the situation in Turkey, with a big difference being the capabilities available inside Syria compared with what the Turkish government has.”
We need heating, fuel and electricity and support for civil defence in rescuing the trapped people under the rubble and collapsed buildings— Dr Wassel Al-Jerk, working with medical charity in Syria
Dr Al-Jerk explained that casualties among SEMA’s own staff are making it more difficult to treat the large numbers of patients requiring medical attention.
“Many of the staff are affected as normal people by the earthquake, and lost their families and sometimes they lost their lives, and most of them are trying to secure shelter for their families,” he said.
“Two who died are female, who were working as social mobilisers for a vaccination programme. And a surgical assistant lost his left arm when his house collapsed on his whole family. He is in the intensive care unit.”
He added: “There are high needs for securing shelter for medical aid, for drinking water and food items and non-food items.
“We need heating, fuel and electricity and support for civil defence in rescuing the trapped people under the rubble and collapsed buildings.”
For more details on how to donate visit www.dec.org.uk.
