Six UN lorries carrying aid have now crossed the border from Turkey into Syria – the first international help people there have had as the death toll in Monday’s quake that hit Turkey and Syria passes 19,700.
Without shelter, water, fuel or electricity the World Health Organization fears many survivors could yet lose their lives. It said there’s a danger there will be a secondary disaster which may cause harm to more people than the initial quake.
However, human rights groups have sharply criticized the UN aid for their timing and content.
“Shame on the United Nations for sending six trucks with aid which were already coming into northwest Syria before the earthquake took place,” said Rami Abdul Rahman, who has been monitoring violence inside war-torn Syria since 2011 and is the founder of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“This is a mockery. The trucks had very, very few things,” he said, adding the cargo could have “fit in one truck”.
Rahman’s group first thought the trucks were to carry mainly blankets and other aid. But when an observatory worker actually looked at the cargo and discovered the supplies included detergent and other items not suitable for earthquake victims, they were outraged.
Rescuers in Turkey and Syria are continuing their painstaking work but hopes are fading for the many still trapped under the rubble.
Meanwhile British charities have launched an appeal to raise funds for people affected.
More than 16,546 people have died in Turkey, according to the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while at least 3,317 have been killed in Syria.
A two-year-old boy was on Thursday rescued from a collapsed building after being trapped for 79 hours in its rubble.
Footage from Turkey’s IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation showed rescue workers looking into a narrow opening in debris in Antakya and pulling out the boy as he wept.
A worker from Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority carried the boy away and handed him to health workers as bystanders filmed the rescue on their phones.
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Kahramanmaras, said the ruins of a quake-hit building have become “a complete graveyard”.
“An elderly woman told me this morning, ‘Please, make my voice heard,’ because her son, daughter-in-law and her grandchild were still under this collapsed building,” Serdar said.
“But unfortunately, a little while ago, the end was heartbreaking because the rescue team took the dead bodies of her family out – and her screaming was terrifying,” he said.
“This is the story of the families here. There are several other families that are anxiously waiting, still having hope they might hear a voice of their loved ones. They have been waiting here for more than 80 hours.
Despite the extremely cold weather, they are not willing to leave without getting their relatives out from under the rubble – dead or alive.”
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