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Turkey, Syria earthquakes: Thousands of survivors wondering what comes next
Thousands who survived the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria a week ago are pondering what comes next. While many have been evacuated from the devastated region, others are staying by wrecked homes and as the search for missing loved ones continues.
Rescuers found a woman alive 174 hours after the first quake struck, but reports of rescues were coming less often as the time since the quake reaches the limits of the human body's ability to survive without water, especially in freezing temperatures.
The magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes struck nine hours apart in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Feb. 6. They killed over 35,000, with the toll expected to rise considerably as search teams find more bodies, and reduced much of towns and cities inhabited by millions to fragments of concrete and twisted metal.
On Monday rescuers from Istanbul pulled a woman named Naide Umay from a collapsed building in the hard-hit city of Antakya. Earlier, a 40-year-old woman was rescued from the wreckage of a 5-story building in the town of Islahiye, in Gaziantep province, while a 60-year old was rescued in Besni, in Adiyaman province.
A week after the quakes hit, many people were still without shelter in the streets. Some survivors were still waiting in front of collapsed buildings for the bodies of their loved ones to be retrieved.
In the village of Polat, in Malatya province, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the epicenter, almost no houses were left standing. Residents were trying to salvage refrigerators, washing machines and other goods from wrecked homes.
Resident Zehra Kurukafa said not enough tents had arrived, forcing up to four families to share the tents that were available.
“We sleep in the mud, all together with two, three, even four families. There aren’t enough tents,” she said.
In the city of Adiyaman, 25-year-old Musa Bozkurt was waiting for a vehicle to transport him and others to the city of Afyon, in western Turkey.
“We’re going away but we have no idea what will happen when we get there” Bozkurt said. "We have no goal. Even if there was (a plan) what good will it be after this hour? I no longer have my father or my uncle. What do I have left?” he said.
Fuat Ekinci, a 55-year-farmer, was reluctant to leave his home in rural Adiyaman for Afyon despite the destruction, saying he didn’t have the means to live elsewhere and had fields that need to be tended.
“Those who have the means are leaving, but we’re poor,” he said. “The government says, go and live there a month or two. How do I leave my home? My fields are here, this is my home, how do I leave it behind?”
Volunteers from across Turkey have mobilized to help millions of survivors, including a group of volunteer chefs and restaurant owners who served traditional food such as beans and rice and lentil soup for survivors in downtown Adiyaman.
Other volunteers continued with the rescue efforts. But Eduardo Reinoso Angulo, a professor at the Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said the likelihood of finding people alive was “very, very small now.”
The lead author on a 2017 study involving deaths inside buildings struck by earthquakes, Reinoso said that the odds of survival for people trapped in wreckage fall dramatically after five days, and is near zero after nine days, although there have been exceptions.
David Alexander, a professor of emergency planning and management at University College London, agreed, saying the window for pulling people alive from the rubble is “almost at an end.”
But, he said, the odds were not very good to begin with. Many of the buildings were so poorly constructed that they collapsed into very small pieces, leaving very few spaces large enough for people to survive in, Alexander said.
“If a frame building of some kind goes over, generally speaking we do find open spaces in a heap of rubble where we can tunnel in,“ Alexander said. “Looking at some of these photographs from Turkey and from Syria, there just aren’t the spaces.”
Wintery conditions further reduce the window for survival. Temperatures in the region have fallen to minus 6 degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.
Read more: Turkey probes contractors as earthquake deaths pass 33,000
“The typical way the body compensates for hypothermia is shivering — and shivering requires a lot of calories,” said Dr. Stephanie Lareau, a professor of emergency medicine at Virginia Tech. “So if somebody’s deprived of food for a number of days and exposed to cold temperatures, they’re probably going to succumb to hypothermia more rapidly.”
Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the vast devastation, and authorities have begun targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed.
At least 131 people were under investigation for their alleged responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the quakes, officials said.
Turkey has introduced construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.
In Syria, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said that the international community has failed to provide aid.
Visiting the Turkish-Syrian border Sunday, Griffiths said Syrians are “looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”
“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” he said, adding, “My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”
The earthquake death toll in Syria’s northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group the White Helmets. The overall death toll in Syria stood at 3,553 on Saturday, although the 1,387 deaths reported for government-held parts of the country hadn’t been updated in days. Turkey’s death toll was 31,643 as of Sunday.
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, the head of the World Health Organization warned that the pain will ripple forward, calling the disaster an “unfolding tragedy that’s affecting millions.”
“The compounding crises of conflict, COVID, cholera, economic decline, and now the earthquake have taken an unbearable toll,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
As survival window closes, more rescued in quake in Turkey
Rescue crews on Monday pulled a 40-year-old woman from the wreckage of a building a week after two powerful earthquakes struck, but reports of rescues are coming less often as the time since the quake reaches the limits of the human body's ability to survive without water, especially in sub-freezing temperatures.
The magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes struck nine hours apart in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Feb. 6. They killed at least 33,185, with the toll expected to rise considerably as search teams find more bodies, and reduced much of towns and cities inhabited by millions to fragments of concrete and twisted metal.
On Monday rescuers pulled a 40-year-old woman from the wreckage of a 5-story building in the town of Islahiye, in Gaziantep province. The woman, Sibel Kaya, was rescued after spending 170 hours beneath the rubble by a mixed crew that included members of Turkey’s coalmine rescue team.
Also REad:After quake, war-hit Syrians struggle to get aid, rebuild
Earlier, a 60-year-woman, Erengul Onder, was also pulled out from the rubble in the town of Besni, in Adiyaman province, by teams from the western city of Manisa.
“We received the news of a miracle from Besni which helped put the fire raging in our hearts a little,” wrote Manisa’s mayor Cengiz Ergun on Twitter.
Eduardo Reinoso Angulo, a professor at the Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said the likelihood of finding people alive was “very, very small now.”
The lead author on a 2017 study involving deaths inside buildings struck by earthquakes, Reinoso said that the odds of survival for people trapped in wreckage fall dramatically after five days, and is near zero after nine days, although there have been exceptions.
David Alexander, a professor of emergency planning and management at University College London, agreed, saying the window for pulling people alive from the rubble is “almost at an end.”
But, he said, the odds were not very good to begin with. Many of the buildings were so poorly constructed that they collapsed into very small pieces, leaving very few spaces large enough for people to survive in, Alexander said.
“If a frame building of some kind goes over, generally speaking we do find open spaces in a heap of rubble where we can tunnel in,“ Alexander said. “Looking at some of these photographs from Turkey and from Syria, there just aren’t the spaces.”
Wintery conditions further reduce the window for survival. Temperatures in the region have fallen to minus 6 degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.
“The typical way the body compensates for hypothermia is shivering — and shivering requires a lot of calories,” said Dr. Stephanie Lareau, a professor of emergency medicine at Virginia Tech. “So if somebody’s deprived of food for a number of days and exposed to cold temperatures, they’re probably going to succumb to hypothermia more rapidly.”
A week after the quakes hit, many people were still without shelter in the streets. Some survivors were still waiting in front of collapsed buildings waiting for the bodies of their loved ones to be retrieved.
Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the vast devastation, and authorities have begun targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed.
At least 131 people were under investigation for their alleged responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the quakes, officials said.
Turkey has introduced construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.
In Syria, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said that the international community has failed to provide aid.
Visiting the Turkish-Syrian border Sunday, Griffiths said Syrians are “looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”
“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” he said, adding, “My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”
The earthquake death toll in Syria’s northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group the White Helmets. The overall death toll in Syria stood at 3,553 on Saturday, although the 1,387 deaths reported for government-held parts of the country hadn’t been updated in days. Turkey’s death toll was 29,605 as of Sunday.
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, the head of the World Health Organization warned that the pain will ripple forward, calling the disaster an “unfolding tragedy that’s affecting millions.”
“The compounding crises of conflict, COVID, cholera, economic decline, and now the earthquake have taken an unbearable toll,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
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Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey, and El Deeb from Adana, Turkey. Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia contributed.
After quake, war-hit Syrians struggle to get aid, rebuild
After years of war, residents of areas in northwest Syria struck by a massive earthquake are grappling with their new and worsening reality.
Almost one week after the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck northern Syria and neighboring Turkey, the United Nations has acknowledged an international failure to help Syrian quake victims.
In Atareb, a town that Syrian rebels still hold after years of fighting government troops, survivors dug through the debris of their homes Sunday, picking up the remnants of their shattered lives and looking for ways to heal after the latest in a series of humanitarian disasters to hit the war-battered area.
Excavators lifted rubble and residents with shovels and picks destroyed columns to even out a demolished building.
Dozens of newly displaced families gathered for hot meals from local volunteers and the local opposition-run government. A private citizen went tent to tent to give out wads of cash in a makeshift shelter — the equivalent of about $18 to each family.
Syrians were doing what they have honed over years of crises: relying on themselves to pick up the pieces and move on.
“We are licking our own wounds,” said Hekmat Hamoud, who had been displaced twice by Syria’s ongoing conflict before finding himself trapped for hours beneath rubble.
Syria's northwestern rebel-held enclave, where over 4 million people for years have struggled to cope with ruthless airstrikes and rampant poverty, was hit hard by the Feb. 6 quake.
Many in the area were already displaced from the ongoing conflict and live in crowded tent settlements or buildings weakened by past bombings. The quake killed over 2,000 people in the enclave, and displaced many more for a second time, forcing some to sleep under olive groves in the frigid winter weather.
“l lost everything,” said father of two Fares Ahmed Abdo, 25, who survived the quake. But his new home and body shop where he fixed motorcycles for a living were destroyed. Once again with barely any shelter and no power nor toilets, he, his wife, two boys and ill mother are crammed in a small tent.
“I am waiting for any help," he said.
Visiting the Turkish-Syrian border Sunday, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths acknowledged in a statement that Syrians have been left “looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”
“We have so far failed the people in north-west Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” he said. “My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”
Northwest Syria relies almost entirely on aid for survival, but post-quake international assistance has been slow to reach the area. The first U.N. convoy to reach the area from Turkey was on Thursday — three days after the earthquake.
Before that, the only cargo coming across the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkey-Syria border was a steady stream of bodies of earthquake victims coming home for burial — Syrian refugees who had fled the war in their country and settled in Turkey but perished in the quake.
The U.N. aid sent from Turkey to Syria is only authorized to enter via the Bab al-Hawa crossing, and logistics were complicated by pressure on the roads, many of them destroyed by the quake. While technically, international aid can also be sent from Syrian government-held areas to rebel-held areas in the northwest, that route brings its own set of hurdles and was at best a trickle.
Critics of the government of President Bashar Assad say aid funneled through government-held areas in Syria faces bureaucracy and the risk that authorities will misappropriate or divert the aid to support people close to the government.
A convoy carrying U.N. aid that was scheduled to cross Sunday into rebel-held Idlib from the government area was canceled after its entry was blocked by the the Qaida-affiliated rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which dominates the area. An administrative arm of the group said in a statement declined to receive assistance from government areas.
Strips of northern Syria are held by a patchwork of sometimes-conflicting groups, further hindering aid deliveries. Turkish-backed rebels have blocked aid convoys from reaching earthquake victims that were sent by rival U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in neighboring areas.
“We are trying to tell everyone, put politics aside. This is the time to unite behind the common effort to support the Syrian people," said Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria who landed in Damascus on Sunday.
At the United Nations, U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield called for an urgent U.S. Security Council vote to authorize the opening of additional cross-border passages into northwestern Syria." People in the affected areas are counting on us," she said in a statement. “They are appealing to our common humanity to help in their moment of need. We cannot let them down.”
While aid has been slow to reach the northwest, a number of countries that had cut ties with Damascus during Syria's civil war have sent help to government areas. Arab countries including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have stepped in. UAE's foreign minister visited Damascus and met with Assad on Sunday.
Raed al-Saleh, the head of the White Helmets, a civil defense group operating in the rebel-held northwest, said Griffiths' visit was “too little, too late.” He said calls for international assistance by local rescue teams went unheeded for days “and during this time, countless lives have been needlessly lost.”
Al-Saleh met with Griffiths to demand the opening of additional cross-border routes for aid to enter without waiting for authorization from the U.N. Security Council.
Abdel-Haseeb Abdel-Raheem sifted through the rubble of his aunt’s destroyed four-story building in the town of Atareb in opposition-run northern Aleppo. He had pulled the bodies of his aunt and her husband from beneath the rubble hours after the quake. Now he went back to find any valuables, using his hands and dipping his body inside the skeleton of the destroyed building to pull out blankets and pillows, as well as some clothes.
The 34-year-old said he had no illusion that humanitarian assistance will solve his problems.
“We have no hope anymore,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.
Dubai boom sees Russian cash, high rents and reborn projects
Fourteen years after a financial crisis nearly brought Dubai to its knees, several major abandoned real estate projects are finally showing signs of life as part of a new economic boom in the city-state.
As with previous upturns in Dubai, war is a driving force. But this time it’s Russian investors fleeing Moscow’s war on Ukraine, rather than people escaping Mideast battlefields.
“There’s lots of parts of the world where there are real challenges and people looking for a safe haven,” said Richard Waind, group managing director for Betterhomes, a real estate brokerage in the emirate. “I think that’s a safe haven both for the capital but also for their families.”
While there’s no sign the market could be in similar trouble as in 2009, some concerns have started to surface. Skyrocketing rental costs are worsening a cost-of-living squeeze for the foreign workforce that powers the emirate.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury is worried about the amount of Russian money flowing into the real estate market of the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates.
“In theory, there should be significant reputational risk with the UAE apparently acting as a willing bridge, enabling Russian oligarchs to use the Emirates as a waystation between the Russian financial system and that of the West,” said Jodi Vittori, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has written extensively on Dubai being a money-laundering haven.
“But the reality seems to point otherwise,” she said.
Dubai's government and the UAE's Foreign Ministry did not respond to detailed questions from The Associated Press.
It’s hard to overstate just how much the Emirates has changed over the last half century. Since 1968, the seven sheikdoms that make up the UAE have grown from a British protectorate of some 180,000 people to a federation that’s home to more than 9.2 million. Government statisticians say 3.5 million people live in Dubai alone, with an additional 1.1 million who temporarily live in the city or commute there for work each day.
Oil, much of it from Abu Dhabi’s vast reserves, fueled the UAE’s initial modernization. After Dubai began allowing foreign ownership of “freehold” properties in 2002, the world’s tallest building, cavernous malls and sprawling subdivisions emerged from what once were uninterrupted stretches of windblown sand dunes.
Real estate now represents some 10% of Dubai's overall gross domestic product. After a slump due to COVID-19 restrictions, Dubai saw 86,849 residential sales in 2022, beating a previous record of 80,831 set in 2009.
Buyers and renters have filled exclusive neighborhoods such as the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made archipelago in the shape of a palm tree that juts into the Persian Gulf.
The average asking rent for an apartment there is over $67,600 per year, with a villa renting for $276,000 annually, according to real estate firm CBRE. Analysts attribute growth in the luxury market to the wealthy fleeing pandemic restrictions elsewhere.
That pressure has grown even outside the world of the ultra-wealthy. Rents on average across Dubai are up 26.9% year-on-year, even with anti-price-gouging protections. Families living in villas can expect to pay median rents of $76,000 a year.
The sudden increase in rent prompted Gavin Hill, a 34-year-old car salesman from Essex, England, to move with his partner from a villa in the Dubai Hills neighborhood near downtown to a smaller apartment some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south.
“In terms of looking for a new place, previously it was reasonably easy," said Hill, who has moved four times in the six years he has lived in Dubai. "This time it’s a minefield”
Russian money has helped fuel this.
Betterhomes, which has operated here since 1986, saw Russians lead all other nationalities in purchases by non-residents for the first time last year. Other real estate brokers have also acknowledged anecdotally the influence Russians have had.
“Since the crisis in Eastern Europe, we have seen a lot of Russians, a lot of Ukrainians as well, looking to both move their family and and money out there," Waind said.
Dubai has a history of seeking a business advantage in crises like the Arab Spring, COVID-19 and now Russia's war on Ukraine. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, its new Jebel Ali port repaired ships damaged by explosions and gunfire in the Persian Gulf. The U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq saw wealthy émigrés arrive in Dubai and the wider UAE.
Those booms included what the West would consider dirty money as well. Some of the nearly $1 billion embezzled in the 2010 Kabul Bank scandal in Afghanistan went toward luxury homes on Palm Jumeirah. A cousin of Syrian President Bashar Assad tied to Assad's sanctioned business dealings also owned property there.
It remains unclear how many Russians have bought in Dubai — and whether the purchases involve people fleeing potential conscription into the Russian army or mass purchases that can be the work of money launderers. Unlike in the U.S., where property records are public, Dubai does not offer an easily accessible database of transactions.
A team from the U.S. Treasury stopped in the UAE on a Mideast tour in January.
A senior U.S. official told The Associated Press that the agency is concerned about the Russian money coming into the Dubai real estate market. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity about discussing sanctions.
Already, the Treasury has issued an alert aimed at U.S. commercial real estate stating that Russian oligarchs and their intermediaries could use “highly complex financing methods and opaque ownership structures" to hide illicit funds.
But it remains unclear what, if any, action Treasury would take, considering the defense and economic ties the U.S. has with the Emirates. A global body focused on fighting money laundering put the UAE on its “gray list” over concerns it isn’t doing enough to stop criminals and militants from hiding wealth there.
Once-abandoned projects that are showing new life include the Dubai Pearl, a planned $4 billion luxury development that was supposed to host multiple hotels and apartments in four, 73-story towers. Those plans collapsed during the 2009 financial crisis, brought on by the Great Recession, that forced Abu Dhabi to provide the city-state a $20 billion bailout.
Demolition crews are now bringing down the concrete husk of the Dubai Pearl, though plans for the site remain unclear.
Plans for the development of Palm Jumeirah's forgotten twin, the Palm Jebel Ali, are also being relaunched.
One practice that helped fuel Dubai's 2009 crisis involved speculators buying yet-to-be built properties. “Off-plan” flipping is growing again as initial buyers “are capitalizing on the current market upswing and cashing out with a premium in hand,” local firm Property Monitor said.
That company and others warn that speculative purchasing could lead to another bubble.
“This does suggest a rise in speculative activity, which is a feature of any market that is seeing price rises,” said Scott Livermore, the chief economist at Oxford Economics Middle East.
Hill — the renter from England — would like to buy a place if the market comes down again. But he's cautious after what he's seen in this boomtown.
Dubai "can eat people out and spit them out quite quickly," Hill said. "I’ve seen too many people go crazy and then go bust very, very fast.”
Iranian President Raisi to visit China to shore up ties
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will meet with his counterpart Xi Jinping during his three-day trip in China starting Tuesday, as the two U.S. rivals seek further cooperation.
China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the announcement Sunday, saying Raisi's visit was at Xi's invitation.
Raisi will meet with Xi and their delegations will sign cooperation documents, according to Iran's state news agency IRNA. Meeting with Iranian and Chinese business leaders and Iranian expatriates in China is also part of his itinerary, the report added.
Raisi's visit is expected to deepen ties between the two political and economic partners that are opposed to the U.S.-led Western domination of international affairs.
The two leaders met last September in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, when Xi underscored China's support for Iran.
In December, Raisi pledged to remain committed to deepening the strategic partnership during a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua in Tehran.
China is a major buyer of Iranian oil and an important source of investment in the Mideast country. In 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement that covered major economic activities from oil and mining to industry, transportation and agriculture.
Both countries have had tense relations with the United States and have sought to project themselves as a counterweight to American power alongside Russia.
Washington has accused Iran of selling hundreds of attack drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine and has sanctioned executives of an Iranian drone manufacturer. At that same time, ties between Moscow and Beijing have grown stronger.
Iran on Saturday celebrated the 44th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution amid nationwide anti-government protests and heightened tensions with the West.
US holds drills in South China Sea amid tensions with China
The United States Navy and Marine Corps are holding joint exercises in the South China Sea at a time of heightened tensions with Beijing over the shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon.
The 7th Fleet based in Japan said Sunday that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit have been conducting “integrated expeditionary strike force operations” in the South China Sea.
It said exercises involving ships, ground forces and aircraft took place Saturday but gave no details on when the began or whether they had ended.
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and strongly objects to military activity by other nations in the contested waterway through which $5 trillion in goods are shipped every year.
The U.S. takes no official position on sovereignty in the South China Sea, but maintains that freedom of navigation and overflight must be preserved. Several times a year, it sends ships sailing past fortified Chinese outposts in the Spratly Islands, prompting protests from Beijing.
The U.S. has also been strengthening its defense alliance with the Philippines, which has faced encroachment on islands and fisheries by the Chinese coast guard and nominally civilian but government-backed fleets.
The U.S. military exercises were planned in advance. They come as already tense relations between Washington and Beijing have been exacerbated by a diplomatic row sparked by the balloon, which was shot down last weekend in U.S. airspace off the coast of South Carolina.
The U.S. said the unmanned balloon was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals, but Beijing insists it was a weather research airship that had accidently blown off course.
The balloon prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to abruptly cancel a high-stakes trip to Beijing aimed at easing tensions.
After first issuing a highly rare expression of regret over the balloon, China has toughened its rhetoric, calling the U.S. shootdown an overreaction and a violation of international norms. China's defense minister refused to take a phone call from U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss the matter.
The United States has since blacklisted six Chinese entities it said were linked to Beijing’s aerospace programs as part of its response to the incident. The House of Representatives also voted unanimously to condemn China for a “brazen violation” of U.S. sovereignty and efforts to “deceive the international community through false claims about its intelligence collection campaigns.”
The balloon was part of a large surveillance program that China has been conducting for several years, the Pentagon said. The U.S. says Chinese balloons have flown over dozens of countries across five continents in recent years, and it learned more about the balloon program after closely monitoring the one shot down near South Carolina.
In its news release, the 7th Fleet said the joint operation had “established a powerful presence in the region, which supports peace and stability."
“As a ready response force, we underpin a broad spectrum of missions including landing Marines ashore, humanitarian disaster relief, and deterring potential adversaries through visible and present combat power," the release said.
Israeli jets hit militant site in Gaza after rocket attack
Residents of the Gaza Strip said Israeli aircraft launched a series of airstrikes at militant sites in the coastal Palestinian territory early Monday.
The airstrikes appear to be a response to the firing of a rocket by Palestinian militants toward southern Israel Saturday evening. Israeli air defenses intercepted the rocket.
Also Read: Tens of thousands of Israelis join anti-government protests
The Israeli military said the airstrikes targeted an underground rocket manufacturing complex run by Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Gaza-Israel frontier had been largely quiet in recent months, but there have been intermittent rocket fire and airstrikes influenced by soaring violence between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Tens of thousands of Israelis join anti-government protests
Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the street in several cities across the country Saturday, protesting judicial overhaul plans by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Critics say measures introduced by the new hard-line government would weaken the Supreme Court, limit judicial oversight and grant more power to politicians. Protesters say that would undermine democracy.
The rift over the power of courts is deepening as the government is set to introduce some of the legislations in parliament Monday amid calls for partial strikes by businesses and professional groups.
For the sixth week, protesters pressed on with large rallies, with the main one in the central city of Tel Aviv and several smaller gatherings in other cities.
Turkey probes contractors as earthquake deaths pass 33,000
Turkish authorities are targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed in the powerful Feb. 6 earthquakes as rescuers found more survivors in the rubble Sunday, including a pregnant woman and two children, in the disaster that killed over 33,000 people.
The death toll from the magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 quakes that struck nine hours apart in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria rose to 33,185 and was certain to increase as search teams find more bodies.
As despair bred rage at the agonizingly slow rescues, the focus turned to assigning blame.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 131 people were under investigation for their alleged responsibility in the construction of buildings that failed to withstand the quakes. While the quakes were powerful, many in Turkey blame faulty construction for multiplying the devastation.
Turkey's construction codes meet current earthquake-engineering standards, at least on paper, but they are rarely enforced, explaining why thousands of buildings toppled over or pancaked down onto the people inside.
Among those facing scrutiny were two people arrested in Gaziantep province on suspicion of cutting down columns to make extra room in a building that collapsed, the state-run Anadolu Agency said. The justice ministry said three people were arrested, seven others were detained and another seven were barred from leaving Turkey.
Also Read: Turkey detains building contractors as quake deaths pass 33,000
Two contractors held responsible for the destruction of buildings in Adiyaman were arrested Sunday at Istanbul Airport while trying to leave the country, the private DHA news agency and other media reported. One detained contractor, Yavuz Karakus, told DHA: “My conscience is clear. I built 44 buildings. Four of them were demolished. I did everything according to the rules.”
Rescuers reported finding more survivors amid increasingly long odds. Thermal cameras were used as crews demanded silence to hear those trapped.
In hard-hit Hatay province, a 50-year-old woman who appeared badly injured was carried out by crews in the town of Iskenderun. Similar rescues in the province saved two other women, one of them pregnant, according to broadcasters TRT and HaberTurk.
HaberTurk showed a 6-year-old boy rescued from his wrecked home in Adiyaman. An exhausted rescuer removed his surgical mask and took deep breaths as several women cried in joy.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca posted a video of a young girl in a navy blue jumper who was found alive. “There is always hope!” he tweeted.
Rescuers in Antakya, elsewhere in Hatay province, pulled a man in his late 20s or 30s from the rubble, saying he was one of nine trapped in the building. He waved weakly as he was removed on a stretcher as workers applauded and chanted, “God is great!”
German and Turkish workers rescued an 88-year-old in Kirikhan, German news agency dpa reported. Italian and Turkish rescuers found a 35-year-old man in Antakya who appeared unscathed, private NTV television reported.
A child was freed overnight in the town of Nizip, in Gaziantep, state-run Anadolu Agency said, while a 32-year woman was found in a wrecked eight-story building in Antakya and asked for tea when she emerged, according to NTV.
Those were the rare exceptions.
Backhoes and bulldozers prepared a large cemetery in Antakya’s outskirts as trucks and ambulances brought a steady stream of black body bags. Hundreds of graves were marked with simple wooden planks.
Hatay’s airport reopened Sunday after its runway was repaired, and military and commercial planes ferried in supplies and will take away evacuees.
There are 34,717 Turkish personnel involved in rescue efforts. On Sunday, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said they were joined by 9,595 personnel from 74 countries, with more on the way.
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, the head of the World Health Organization warned that the pain will ripple forward, calling the disaster an “unfolding tragedy that’s affecting millions.”
“The compounding crises of conflict, COVID, cholera, economic decline, and now the earthquake have taken an unbearable toll,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Tedros said WHO experts were waiting to enter northwestern Syria “where we have been told the impact is even worse.”
U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, visiting the Turkish-Syrian border Sunday, said Syrians are “looking for international help that hasn’t arrived.”
“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned,” he said, adding, “My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”
In the town of Atareb, in opposition-run northern Aleppo province, Abdel-Haseeb Abdel-Raheem returned Sunday to his ruined four-story building to try to salvage any valuables but could find only blankets, pillows and some clothes. His aunt and her husband died there, but their three children survived.
With no international rescue efforts in the war-battered region, the 34-year-old had to recover the bodies himself.
“You can’t hear someone inside screaming and sit tight. You can’t sit still. You can’t have the heart to hear someone (crying for help) and you do nothing,” he said, sitting above a mound of debris.
Political disputes have held up aid convoys sent from areas of northeast Syria controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish groups to those controlled by the Syrian government and by Turkish-backed rebels who have fought with the Kurdish groups over the years.
A U.N. aid convoy sent to northwestern Syria through government-held areas was postponed due to obstruction from Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, an al-Qaida affiliated group ruling Idlib province, a U.N. spokesperson told The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, U.N. aid convoys continue to cross from Turkey into northwestern Syria through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing. The first U.N. convoy only reached northwest Syria from Turkey on Thursday, three days after the disaster struck.
Before that, it was only a steady stream of bodies coming through Bab al-Hawa: Syrian refugees who had fled the civil war and settled in Turkey but died in the disaster, being returned home for burial.
The earthquake death toll in Syria’s northwestern rebel-held region has reached 2,166, according to the rescue group the White Helmets. The overall death toll in Syria stood at 3,553 on Saturday, although the 1,387 deaths reported for government-held parts of the country hadn’t been updated in days. Turkey’s death toll was 29,605 as of Sunday.
Turkey’s Justice Ministry announced the establishment of Earthquake Crimes Investigation bureaus to identify contractors and others responsible for building works. It would gather evidence; instruct experts including architects, geologists and engineers; and check building permits and occupation permits.
A contractor was detained Friday at Istanbul airport before he could leave the country. He built a luxury 12-story building called Ronesans Rezidans in Antakya, and when it fell, it killed an untold number. He was formally arrested Saturday.
In leaked testimony published by Anadolu, the man said the building followed regulations and he did not know why it didn't stay standing. His lawyer suggested his client was a scapegoat.
Under programs that allowed building owners to pay fines instead of bringing them up to code, the government agency responsible for enforcement acknowledged in 2019 that over half of all buildings in Turkey — accounting for some 13 million apartments— were not in compliance.
The detentions could help direct public anger toward builders and contractors, deflecting it from local and state officials who allowed apparently substandard construction to proceed. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, already burdened by an economic downturn and high inflation, faces parliamentary and presidential elections in May.
The nongovernmental business organization TURKONFED estimated the earthquake damage at $84.1 billion, based on statistics from the devastating 1999 quake in northwestern Turkey, including $70.1 billion in housing and $10.4 billion to gross domestic product.
Rescue crews have been overwhelmed by the widespread damage that has affected roads and airports, making it even harder to move quickly.
Erdogan acknowledged the initial response was hampered by the damage, with the worst-affected area 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter and home to 13.5 million. During a tour Saturday, Erdogan said such a tragedy was rare, referring to it as the “disaster of the century” in multiple speeches.
In New York City, mourners gathered Saturday at a mosque to remember a family of four from the borough of Queens who were killed while visiting relatives in Turkey. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Burak and Kimberly Firik and their sons, aged 1 and 2, died in the disaster.
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Bilginsoy reported from Istanbul. Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Abby Sewell in Beirut, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Sarah El Deeb in Atareb, Syria, contributed.
Spain: Hundreds of thousands march for Madrid’s healthcare
Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards flooded the streets of Madrid on Sunday for the largest protest yet against the regional government’s management of the capital city’s health care services.
Over 250,000 people rallied in the city center, according to the central Spanish government. Organizers claimed the crowd was bigger by several hundred thousand. Many protest participants carried homemade signs with messages in Spanish like “The right to health is a human right. Defend the health service.”
Health worker associations led the demonstration, which was backed by left-wing parties, unions and normal citizens concerned with what they see as the dismantling of the public health care system by the Madrid region’s conservative-led government.
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These groups have taken to the streets on a regular basis in recent months, and their movement is gathering strength.
Madrid’s regional chief, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, alleges the protests are motivated by the political interests of left-wing rivals ahead of May regional elections across most of Spain.
Health care workers claim that Díaz Ayuso’s administration spends the least amount per capita on primary health care of any Spanish region even though it has the highest per capita income. They say that for every 2 euros spent on health care in Madrid, one ends up in the private sector.
Critics of her administration say that produces long waits for patients and overworked doctors and nurses.
Spain has a hybrid health care system, but the public sector is larger than the private one and is considered a basic pillar of the state. It is run by Spain’s regions.