Turkiye-Syria Earthquake: Voices Still Being Heard Under Rubble After A Week, Toll Passes 41,000

Turkiye-Syria Earthquake: Rescuers said that they were still hearing voices from under the rubble, a week after the devastating earthquake, providing them with a hope of finding more survivors.

Rescuers in southern Turkey, which was jolted with a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6, said that they were still hearing voices from under the rubble, a week after the devastating quake, offering a glimmer of hope of finding more survivors, reported CNN. 

While the rescuers hope to find more survivors, the quake has already claimed the lives of over 41,000 people in Turkey and Syria. 

The rescuers attempted to save three sisters from under the rubble in Turkey’s Kahramanmaras region while a 35-year-old woman was saved in the same region who was believed to have been stuck under the debris for around 205 hours, it added. 

Two brother, 17-year-old Muhammad Enis Yeninar and 21-year-old brother Abdulbaki Yennir, were also rescued from the collapsed building in Kahramanmaras on Tuesday, according to TRT Haber. 

People Suffering Through PTSD, Says Indian Army Major 

Indian Army Major Beena Tiwari, deployed at a Turkish field hospital in the southern city of Iskendrun said that the patients had initially arrived with physical injuries but that is now changing. "Now more of the patients are coming with post-traumatic stress disorder, following all the shock that they've gone through during the earthquake," she told Reuters.

Families in Turkey and Syria said that they and their children were dealing with the psychological aftermath of the quake. 

"Whenever he forgets, he hears a loud sound and then remembers again," Hassan Moaz said of his 9-year-old in Aleppo, Syria. "When he's sleeping at night and hears a sound, he wakes up and tells me: 'Dad, aftershock!'"

WHO Urges Cross-Border Aid Between Turkey, Syria 

The World Health Organisation has urged governments and civil society to work together to ensure cross-border delivery of humanitarian aid between Turkey and Syria and within Syria. 

The WHO's Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge, called the earthquakes "the worst natural disaster" in the region in a century, and emphasised the importance of all parties cooperating on aid delivery, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The needs are huge, increasing by the hour. Some 26 million people across both countries need humanitarian assistance," said Kluge during a press conference on Tuesday.

With the opening of two more border crossing points in Syria after the announcement by Bashar al-Assad, UN workers were racing to funnel aid to survivors in the war-ravaged country hit by the devastating quake. 

Eleven trucks with UN aid crossed into northwest Syria via the Bab Al-Salam passage on Tuesday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths tweeted, adding that 26 more trucks passed into the region via the Bab Al-Hawa crossing.