As earthquake fatalities reach 15,000, Turkey’s president acknowledges “shortcomings.”

Turkey Earthquake: The disaster’s expansive scope, which destroyed thousands of structures and trapped an undetermined number of people, has overwhelmed already-challenged recovery efforts brought on by icy weather.

Following criticism of his administration’s handling of the catastrophic earthquake that has claimed over 15,000 lives in Turkey and Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged “shortcomings” on Wednesday.

The disaster’s vast scope has overwhelmed relief efforts that were already impeded by the frigid weather and destroyed thousands of buildings, trapping an unknown number of people.

Foraging for food and shelter has been left up to the survivors, who in some cases have had to watch helplessly as their loved ones begged for aid before going silent under the rubble.

“In the rubble lie my nephew, my sister-in-law, and my sister-in-sister. law’s There is no sign of life, and they are stuck beneath the wreckage “explained Hatay, Turkey kindergarten teacher Semire Coban.

“They are out of our reach. They are not responding to our attempts to communicate with them. We are awaiting assistance. It’s been 48 hours already, “She spoke.

Even though the death toll is still rising three days after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which is already one of the deadliest this century, searchers kept finding survivors amid the rubble.

Erdogan visited one of the hardest-hit areas, the earthquake epicentre Kahramanmaras, as online criticism of the reaction grew.

“Naturally, there are drawbacks. It is easy to see the circumstances. A catastrophe like this cannot be anticipated, “he stated.

AFP journalists and the web monitoring service NetBlocks reported that Twitter was also down on Turkish mobile networks.

The children rescued

As the endeavour approaches the 72-hour mark, which catastrophe experts believe the most likely period to save lives, the window for rescuers to identify survivors is getting smaller.

However, on Wednesday, in the severely affected Turkish province of Hatay, where entire towns have been destroyed, rescuers managed to free children from under a fallen structure.

Alperen Cetinkaya, a rescuer, recalled the moment he first heard voices: “All of a sudden, we heard voices, and thanks to the excavator, right away, we heard the voices of three people at the same time.”

We anticipate more of them, and he continued, “The possibilities of getting people out of here alive are pretty good.”

Officials and medical personnel reported that 12,391 people have died in Turkey and at least 2,992 in Syria as a result of Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake, bringing the overall death toll to 15,383; analysts worry the number will continue to dramatically increase.

In order to mobilise foreign funding for Syria and Turkey, the EU is arranging a donor meeting in Brussels in March.

EU commissioner Ursula von der Leyen wrote on Twitter, “We are now racing against the clock to rescue lives together.”

When a catastrophe like this affects a people, no one should be left alone, said von der Leyen.

There are deaths every second.

Survivors claimed that they felt alone in dealing with the tragedy due to the extent of the devastation and the lack of assistance reaching some locations.

“Even the standing structures suffered significant damage. Currently, there are more people below the debris than there are above it “In the Syrian village of Jindayris, which is held by rebels, a local by the name of Hassan remarked.

“Each building that has collapsed has between 400 and 500 people trapped underneath it, and only 10 individuals are attempting to rescue them. Moreover, no machinery exists “Added he.

In a “race against time,” the White Helmets, who are in charge of operations to rescue those trapped under rubble in areas of Syria controlled by rebels, have requested assistance from abroad.

Since the earthquake, they have been working to extricate survivors from under the rubble of hundreds of destroyed buildings in war-torn regions of northwest Syria that are still out of government control.

Leading UN official demanded that aid be made more easily accessible to rebel-held areas in the northwest, saying that supplies of supplies will soon run out.

El-Mostafa Benlamlih, the UN’s resident Syria coordinator, told AFP in an interview, “Put politics aside and let us perform our humanitarian work.”

Syria requests aid from the EU

The EU’s commissioner for crisis management, Janez Lenarcic, noted that the topic of aid to Syria is a complex one and that the sanctioned government in Damascus made an official appeal to the EU for assistance.

Hospitals had already been devastated, the economy had already collapsed, and there had been electricity, fuel, and water shortages due to a decade of civil conflict and aerial bombardment by Syria and Russia.

Lenarcic said that the European Commission is “encouraging” EU members to fulfil Syria’s request for food and medical supplies while also keeping an eye out to make sure that any assistance “is not misdirected” by President Bashar al-administration. Assad’s

The United States, China, and the Gulf States are among the dozens of countries that have committed their support, and rescue teams and relief supplies have already arrived.

The strong earthquake that shook Turkey on Monday near the Syrian border prompted the European Union to send rescue personnel there almost once.

However, due to EU sanctions against Assad’s government since 2011 following its deadly crackdown on protesters that descended into a civil war, it first only provided Syria with a minimum amount of aid.

One of the earthquake hotspots in the globe is at the Turkish-Syrian border.

The 1939 earthquake in eastern Erzincan province, which killed 33,000 people, was smaller than the quake that occurred on Monday.

Over 17,000 people were killed by a 7.4 earthquake in 1999.