CNN
—
Standing in front of the flat ruins of a ten-story building. Turkish city A man waits impatiently for news of his friend Mustafa trapped under the rubble.
Alptekin Talanci is worried that this week’s bad weather, with temperatures dipping below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, could jeopardize his friend’s chances.
Taranci told CNN on Tuesday, “The condition is very bad, and even if he could have survived, it would be due to cold and hypothermia.
A rescuer shares his concerns. Authorities are racing against time to free survivors from the wreckage of a magnitude-7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey early Monday morning, destroying thousands of buildings. Syria.
Complicating the rescue effort is that the area has seen dozens of aftershocks since Monday’s quake, which could cause more buildings to collapse.
With more than 7,000 dead in both countries, Mustafa’s survival is nothing short of a miracle, Talanci said.
“We’re just praying. That’s all I can say,” Taranchi told CNN.
Nearby, deprived residents wrap themselves in blankets, gather around a small fire, and pass bowls of soup. They too are waiting for news of survivors.
In the bitter cold, their faces are marked with hopelessness.
In another destroyed building in Ibrahimli, a suburb of Gaziantep, rescuers slowly descend a crumbling concrete hill. The sounds of drills and mechanized drilling equipment echo around.
A distraught mother is there, waiting for news of her child buried under the rubble of a seven-story building. She shows the picture in the hope that rescuers will find the child.
Of the 15 people who were in the apartment at the time of the collapse, only three were rescued.
Grief is everywhere. A man cries outside another abandoned building with his parents trapped inside, he told CNN.
“It’s the same situation for everyone,” he said sadly.
Hundreds of people waited for flights to resume at Gaziantep airport on Tuesday. Turkey is no stranger to natural disasters, but Monday’s quake, one of the deadliest in the last century, rocked the country to its core. Aftershocks are still possible.
The 28-year-old woman, who declined to be named, said she hoped she and her boyfriend would spend Monday night in a car and catch a relief flight to Istanbul.
they were lucky. Their building did not collapse. But the woman told CNN she was too scared to go back after Monday’s violent shaking left a “huge crack” in the structure.
All they have is an ID card, her laptop, and a large bag filled with some personal items.
“It feels surreal. In fact, seeing all the damage it caused, I can’t believe we survived it and survived,” she said.
