Turkey’s president calls what Monday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake and a 7.6 aftershock did to his nation and neighboring Syria “the disaster of the century.” The death toll is racing toward 25,000 people as rescue operations continue around the clock.
Shattered Concrete and Twisted Metal
The damage has rendered many communities unrecognizable to their own residents. Video from the air shows entire neighborhoods of high-rise buildings reduced to shattered concrete and twisted metal. Almost 3,000 buildings have collapsed across 17 Turkish provinces.
Among them are hospitals that were desperately needed to help save the lives of many wounded in the earthquake. Tens of thousands were injured. The danger goes on. More than 650 aftershocks have rumbled through the region, making rescue efforts all the more dangerous in severely weakened structures.
Israelis, Operation Blessing and CBN News all there
Thousands of rescue workers have raced to the earthquake zone, among them many Israelis. Some brought along and set up a field hospital. Charitable organizations like Operation Blessing are also on hand, giving comfort and aid wherever possible. CBN News Jerusalem Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell has arrived in the disaster zone to report on such efforts.
The damage is so widespread, Search and Rescue teams are still having to pick and choose about where to go looking for survivors in a damaged area that stretches as far as London is from Paris and Boston is from Philadelphia.
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Why the Number of Rescues Will Dwindle
Though there are many stories of miraculous rescues, hopes dim by the day of finding buried people alive. It’s possible for the human body to survive a week or more without food and water, but the freezing temperatures in the region add the deadly factor of hypothermia, which will often kill victims sooner.
So many bodies have been found in the rubble, it’s even taking a toll on the rescue workers. One was heard saying his psychological state is declining and that the stench of death is almost more than he can bear.
Teen Pulled from Rubble 94 Hours After Quake Buried Him
But rescues do continue. In Gaziantep, Turkey, 17-year-old Adnan Muhammed Korkut was just pulled from wreckage by Search and Rescue teams along with soldiers 94 hours after the earthquake buried him. Family members on hand cried out his name as others around them shouted, “God is great!”
As Adnan was carried away on a stretcher, one of his brothers yelled out, “Future football star!” His overjoyed mother kissed him as they embraced and his brothers cried around them.
A female rescue worker also hugged Adnan, saying she has a child his age and telling Adnan she hadn’t slept for four days as she worked on finding him and digging him out.
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