europe
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy makes emotional appeal for EU membership
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked his Western allies Thursday for more weapons and said “a Ukraine that is winning” its war with Russia should become a member of the European Union, arguing the bloc won’t be complete without it.
And at the close of a 16-hour summit that ended when Zelenskyy was already gone, the EU leaders pledged they would do all it takes to back Ukraine but offered no firm timetable for membership talks to start, as Zelenskyy had hoped for.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the leaders agreed to support Ukraine “tirelessly, over the long term … to win the war.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked his Western allies Thursday for more weapons and said “a Ukraine that is winning” its war with Russia should become a member of the European Union, arguing the bloc won’t be complete without it.
Zelenskyy made his appeal during an emotional day at EU headquarters in Brussels as he wrapped up a rare, two-day trip outside Ukraine to seek new weaponry from the West to repel the invasion that Moscow has been waging for nearly a year. As he spoke, a new offensive by Russia in eastern Ukraine was under way.
Zelenskyy, who also visited the U.K. and France, received rapturous applause and cheers from the European Parliament and a summit of the 27 EU leaders, insisting in his speech that the fight with Russia was one for the freedom of all of Europe.
“A Ukraine that is winning is going to be member of the European Union,” Zelenskyy said, building his appeal around the common destiny that Ukraine and the bloc face in confronting Russia.
“Europe will always be, and remain Europe as long as we ... take care of the European way of life,” he said.
EU membership talks should start later this year, Zelenskyy said, an ambitious request given the huge task ahead. Such a move would help motivate Ukrainian soldiers in their defense of the country, he said.
“Of course we need it this year,“ he said, then looked at European Council head Charles Michel, and insisted, tongue-in-cheek: “When I say this year, I mean this year. Two, zero, 23.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, however, said “there is no rigid timeline.” In practice, membership often has taken decades to complete.
He held up an EU flag after his address and the lawmakers stood in somber silence as the Ukrainian national anthem and the European anthem “Ode to Joy” were played in succession.
Before his speech, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said allies should consider “quickly, as a next step, providing long-range systems” and fighter jets to Ukraine. The response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine “must be proportional to the threat, and the threat is existential,” she said.
Metsola also told Zelenskyy that “we have your back. We were with you then, we are with you now, we will be with you for as long as it takes.”
A draft of the summit’s conclusions seen by The Associated Press said “the European Union will stand by Ukraine with steadfast support for as long as it takes.”
During his time in Brussels, Zelenskyy asked Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger to give Ukraine its Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, and he replied: “We will work on” the request. Slovakia grounded its fleet of MiG-29s last year.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the bloc will send Zelenskyy “this signal of unity and solidarity, and can show that we will continue our support for Ukraine in defending its independence and integrity.”
Military analysts say Putin is hoping that Europe’s support for Ukraine will wane as Russia is believed to be preparing a new offensive.
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“Of course we need it this year,“ he said, then looked at European Council head Charles Michel, and insisted, tongue-in-cheek: “When I say this year, I mean this year. Two, zero, 23.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, however, said “there is no rigid timeline.” In practice, membership often has taken decades to complete.
He held up an EU flag after his address and the lawmakers stood in somber silence as the Ukrainian national anthem and the European anthem “Ode to Joy” were played in succession.
Before his speech, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said allies should consider “quickly, as a next step, providing long-range systems” and fighter jets to Ukraine. The response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine “must be proportional to the threat, and the threat is existential,” she said.
Metsola also told Zelenskyy that “we have your back. We were with you then, we are with you now, we will be with you for as long as it takes.”
A draft of the summit’s conclusions seen by The Associated Press said “the European Union will stand by Ukraine with steadfast support for as long as it takes.”
During his time in Brussels, Zelenskyy asked Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger to give Ukraine its Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, and he replied: “We will work on” the request. Slovakia grounded its fleet of MiG-29s last year.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the bloc will send Zelenskyy “this signal of unity and solidarity, and can show that we will continue our support for Ukraine in defending its independence and integrity.”
Military analysts say Putin is hoping that Europe’s support for Ukraine will wane as Russia is believed to be preparing a new offensive.
The Kremlin’s forces “have regained the initiative in Ukraine and have begun their next major offensive” in the eastern Luhansk region, most of which is occupied by Russia, the Institute for the Study of War, said in its latest assessment. “Russian forces are gradually beginning an offensive, but its success is not inherent or predetermined.”
Zelenskyy used the dais of the European Parliament hoping to match Wednesday’s speech to Britain’s legislature when he thanked the nation for its unrelenting support.
That same support has come from the EU. The bloc and its member states have already backed Kyiv with about 50 billion euros ($53.6 billion) in aid, provided military hardware and imposed nine packages of sanctions on the Kremlin.
The EU is in the midst of brokering a new sanctions package worth about 10 billion euros ($10.7 billion) before the war’s anniversary. And there is still plenty of scope for exporting more military hardware to Ukraine as a Russian spring offensive is expected.
Russia is watching Zelenskyy’s movements closely. On Wednesday, Russian state television showed the flight path of a British air force plane that Zelenskyy used to travel to London, taken from a flight monitoring site. The anchor noted the plane flew from an air base in Rzeszow, Poland, that is a hub for Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by Putin, visited a Siberian arms factory Thursday and said his country will respond to the Western aid by churning out thousands of tanks.
“Our enemy was begging for aircraft, missiles and tanks on a trip abroad,” Medvedev said during a visit to the аactory in Omsk. “We will naturally increase the output of various types of weapons and military equipment, including modern tanks. We are talking about production and modernization of thousands of tanks.”
Fighting in Ukraine intensified Thursday, with Kyiv’s military intelligence agency saying Russian forces have launched an offensive in the the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with the aim to grab full control of the entire industrial region, known as the Donbas. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces there since 2014.
“An escalation is underway and the main goal is to seize Donbas by the end of March,” Main Intelligence Directorate spokesman Andriy Yusov told Ukrainian television.
In Donetsk, the front line expanded significantly over the previous day, with fierce battles taking place as Moscow’s forces closed in on key Ukrainian-held towns, according to regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. Russian shelling struck a kindergarten, hospital, cultural center, factory and apartment buildings, he said.
“The intensity of the shelling has increased dramatically and we are seeing a significant intensification of activity by the Russian army immediately in the south, center and north of the region,” Kyrylenko said. “Russia is again actively using combat aircraft to shell our cities and villages.”
Russian forces also stepped up attacks in neighboring Luhansk province, launching “a broad offensive,” regional Gov. Serhii Haidai said.
In Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv province, 23 cities and villages came under shelling. In the border city of Vovchansk, shelling damaged about 10 apartment buildings.
Rescuers push to find survivors of 'disaster of the century'
Rescue workers made a final push Thursday to find survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria that rendered many communities unrecognizable to their inhabitants and led the Turkish president to declare it “the disaster of the century." The death toll topped 20,000.
The earthquake affected an area that is home to 13.5 million people in Turkey and an unknown number in Syria and stretches farther than the distance from London to Paris or Boston to Philadelphia. Even with an army of people taking part in the rescue effort, crews had to pick and choose where to help.
The scene from the air showed the scope of devastation, with entire neighborhoods of high-rises reduced to twisted metal, pulverized concrete and exposed wires.
In Adiyaman, Associated Press journalists saw someone plead with rescuers to look through the rubble of a building where relatives were trapped. They refused, saying no one was alive there and that they had to prioritize areas with possible survivors.
A man who gave his name only as Ahmet out of fear of government retribution later asked the AP: “How can I go home and sleep? My brother is there. He may still be alive.”
The death toll from Monday’s 7.8 magnitude catastrophe rose to nearly 21,000, eclipsing the more than 18,400 who died in the 2011 earthquake off Fukushima, Japan, that triggered a tsunami and the estimated 18,000 people who died in a temblor near the Turkish capital, Istanbul, in 1999.
The new figure, which is certain to rise, included over 17,600 people in Turkey and more than 3,300 in civil war-torn Syria. Tens of thousands were also injured.
Even though experts say people could survive for a week or more, the chances of finding survivors in the freezing temperatures were dimming. As emergency crews and panicked relatives dug through the rubble — and occasionally found people alive — the focus began to shift to demolishing dangerously unstable structures.
The DHA news agency broadcast the rescue of a 10-year-old in Antakya. The agency said medics had to amputate an arm to free her and that her parents and three siblings had died. A 17-year-old girl emerged alive in Adıyaman, and a 20-year-old was found in Kahramanmaras by rescuers who shouted “God is great.”
In Nurdagi, a city of around 40,000 nestled between snowy mountains some 35 miles (56 kilometers) from the quake's epicenter, vast swaths of the city were leveled, with scarcely a building unaffected. Even those that did not collapse were heavily damaged, making them unsafe.
Throngs of onlookers, mostly family members of people trapped inside, watched as heavy machines ripped at one building that had collapsed, its floors pancaked together with little more than a few inches in between.
Mehmet Yilmaz, 67, watched from a distance as bulldozers and other demolition equipment began to bring down what remained of the building where six of his family members had been trapped, including four children.
He estimated that about 80 people were still beneath the rubble and doubted that anyone would be found alive.
“There’s no hope. We can’t give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs, and there was nothing,” Yilmaz said.
Mehmet Nasir Dusan, 67, sat watching as the remnants of the nine-story building were brought down in billowing clouds of dust. He said he held no hope of reuniting with his five family members trapped under the debris.
Still, he said, recovering their bodies would bring some small comfort.
“We’re not leaving this site until we can recover their bodies, even if it takes 10 days,” Dusan said. “My family is destroyed now.”
In Kahramanmaras, the city closest to the epicenter, a sports hall the size of a basketball court served as a makeshift morgue to accommodate and identify bodies.
On the floor lay dozens of bodies wrapped in blankets or black shrouds. At least one appeared to be that of a 5- or 6-year-old.
At the entrance, a man wept over a black body bag that lay next to another in the bed of a small truck. “I’m 70 years old. God should have taken me, not my son,” he cried.
Workers continued to conduct rescue operations in Kahramanmaras, but it was clear that many who were trapped in collapsed buildings had already died. One rescue worker was heard saying that his psychological state was declining and that the smell of death was becoming too much to bear.
In northwestern Syria, the first U.N. aid trucks since the quake to enter the rebel-controlled area from Turkey arrived, underscoring the difficulty of getting help to people there. In the Turkish city of Antakya, dozens scrambled for aid in front of a truck distributing children's coats and other supplies.
One survivor, Ahmet Tokgoz, called for the government to evacuate people from the region. Many of those who have lost their homes found shelter in tents, stadiums and other temporary accommodation, but others have slept outdoors.
“Especially in this cold, it is not possible to live here,” he said. “If people haven’t died from being stuck under the rubble, they’ll die from the cold.”
The winter weather and damage to roads and airports have hampered the response. Some in Turkey have complained that the government was slow to respond — a perception that could hurt Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a time when he faces a tough battle for reelection in May.
“As you know, the earthquake hit an area of 500-kilometer (311-mile) diameter where 13.5 million of our people live, and that made our job difficult,” Erdogan said Thursday.
In the Turkish town of Elbistan, rescuers stood atop the rubble from a collapsed home and pulled out an elderly woman.
Rescue teams urged quiet in the hopes of hearing stifled pleas for help, and the Syrian paramedic group known as the White Helmets noted that “every second could mean saving a life.”
But more and more often, the teams pulled out dead bodies. In Antakya, more than 100 bodies were awaiting identification in a makeshift morgue outside a hospital.
With the chances of finding people alive dwindling, crews in some places began demolishing buildings. Authorities called off search-and-rescue operations in the cities of Kilis and Sanliurfa, where destruction was not as severe as in other areas. Vice President Fuat Oktay said rescue work was mostly complete in Diyarbakir, Adana and Osmaniye.
Across the border in Syria, assistance trickled in. The U.N. is authorized to deliver aid through only one border crossing, and road damage has prevented that thus far. U.N. officials pleaded for humanitarian concerns to take precedence over wartime politics.
It wasn't clear how many people were still unaccounted for in both countries.
Turkey’s disaster-management agency said more than 110,000 rescue personnel were now taking part in the effort and more than 5,500 vehicles, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers and excavators had been shipped. The Foreign Ministry said 95 countries have offered help.
Hope dims for families in Turkey as rescue turns to recovery
Precious hours have turned to tense days across earthquake-hit southern Turkey as fewer people are pulled alive from the rubble. While family members watch rescue workers shift to recovery, they also face an awful truth: that it's unlikely they'll ever be reunited with their missing loved ones.
In Nurdagi, a city of around 40,000 nestled between snowy mountains some 35 miles (56 kilometers) from the epicenter of the quake, throngs of onlookers — mostly family members of people trapped inside — watched on Thursday as heavy machines ripped at one building which had collapsed, its floors pancaked together with little more than a few inches in between.
Mehmet Yilmaz, 67, watched from a distance as bulldozers and other demolition equipment began to bring down what remained of the building where six members of his family — including three children and a three-month-old baby — were trapped.
The operation there had become one not of rescue, but of demolition.
“There’s no hope. We can’t give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs and there was nothing,” said Yilmaz. He hasn't moved from his hopeful perch beside the building for three days.
He estimated about 80 people were still trapped within the collapsed structure, but said he didn’t believe any of them would be recovered alive.
“The building looks like stacks of paper and cardboard, the fifth floor and the first floor have collided into one,” he said grimly, his eyes full of resignation.
Scarcely a building remains in Nurdagi that has not suffered major damage. In those where it was believed there could still be survivors, workers used pick axes, jackhammers and shovels to carefully chip away at the hunks of concrete and twisted knots of rebar in hopes of discovering a sign of life. In other buildings, like the one where Yilmaz's family was trapped, it became more about recovery.
In Kahramanmaras, the nearest city to the earthquake’s epicenter, workers on Thursday continued to search for survivors, but most of their discoveries were comprised of the dead. Standing atop a tall mound of debris, three men reached into a crevice and pulled out a body wrapped in a red blanket, its bare feet protruding.
The body was placed in the bucket of a backhoe and slowly lowered to the ground.
One rescue worker was heard saying that his psychological state was in decline after days of searching, and that the smell of death among the rubble was becoming too much to bear.
Nearby, an indoor sports hall serves as a makeshift morgue to accommodate and identify bodies that were recovered from the debris. On the basketball court-sized floor of the hall lay dozens of bodies wrapped in blankets or black shrouds, at least one of which seemed to be the small body of a five or six-year-old child.
At the entrance to the morgue, a man wept aloud over a black body bag that lie next to another in the bed of a small truck.
“I’m 70 years old! God should have taken me, not my son!” he cried.
Erdal Usta, an assistant to the provincial prosecutor, said the bodies that are dug from the rubble are brought to the building and catalogued, and await identification by relatives who can then transport them to receive burial.
One woman, who did not wish to give her name, said she had brought the body of her father-in-law to the morgue to be formally registered as deceased. She and her family, she said, had dug the man out of the debris with their own hands, but he had been crushed in the collapse.
In Nurdagi, 67-year-old Mehmet Nasir Dusan sat in a chair watching as the remnants of a 9-floor building were brought down by excavators in billowing clouds of dust. He said he held no hope, either, of reuniting with his five family members trapped beneath the debris.
Still, he said, recovering their bodies would bring some small comfort.
“We’re not leaving this site until we can recover their bodies, even if it takes ten days,” he said. “My family is destroyed now.”
Ghana soccer player Atsu's well-being, whereabouts unknown
Ghana international soccer player Christian Atsu is missing after the earthquake in Turkey, his club and agent said Thursday, following earlier reports he was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building and taken to a hospital.
Atsu's well-being and whereabouts were unknown. Aydin Toksoz, the deputy head of Hatayspor soccer club, told Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency news service that club sporting director Taner Savut was also missing after the massive earthquake that struck southern Turkey and Syria and has now killed more than 19,000 people, with that number expected to rise.
The 31-year-old Atsu, who previously played for English clubs Chelsea and Newcastle, signed for Hatayspor late last year. The club is based in the southern city of Antakya, near the epicenter of the earthquake that struck in the early hours of Monday and devastated the region. Atsu and Savut were believed to have been in buildings that collapsed, the club had said.
Nana Sechere, the agent for Atsu, said in messages to The Associated Press that he traveled to Turkey to try to find Atsu but the player “is yet to be found.”
Hatayspor and the Ghana soccer association announced on Tuesday that Atsu was rescued from a ruined building on Monday night and taken to a medical facility for treatment.
Toksoz said Hatayspor was now "not able to confirm this information.”
"We have not been able to reach Atsu or Taner Savut,” Toksoz told the Anadolu Agency.
Ghana's ambassador to Turkey said she was also searching for Atsu. Francisca Ahsitey-Odunton told Ghanaian radio she was given a list of 200 hospitals or medical facilities that Atsu could have been sent to if he was rescued and she had also been unable to confirm where the player was.
She said she hoped he was in one of those hospitals and his location hadn't been confirmed “in all the confusion, which is understandable under the circumstances."
Antakya is one of the cities hardest hit by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which has destroyed thousands of buildings in Turkey alone and sent more than 110,000 rescue personnel scrambling to find survivors trapped under wreckage. More than 63,000 people have been injured in Turkey.
Atsu scored late in injury time to give Hatayspor a 1-0 win over Istanblul-based Kasimpaşa S.K. in the Turkish league on Sunday, earning him praise from his new club hours before the earthquake struck.
Zelenskyy to visit UK for first time since Russia’s invasion
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Britain on Wednesday, his first trip to the U.K. since Russia’s invasion began nearly a year ago and only his second confirmed journey outside Ukraine during the war.
The British government says Zelenskyy will hold talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, address Parliament and meet with U.K. military chiefs.
The U.K. is one of the biggest military backers of Ukraine and has sent the country more than 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) in weapons and equipment.
The visit comes as Sunak announced that Britain will train Ukrainian pilots on “NATO-standard fighter jets.” Ukraine has urged its allies to send jets, though the U.K. says it’s not practical to provide the Ukrainian military with British warplanes.
More than 10,000 Ukrainian troops have also been trained at bases in the U.K., some on the Challenger 2 tanks that Britain is sending.
“I am proud that today we will expand that training from soldiers to marines and fighter jet pilots, ensuring Ukraine has a military able to defend its interests well into the future,” Sunak said. “It also underlines our commitment to not just provide military equipment for the short term, but a long-term pledge to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine for years to come.”
Zelenskyy addressed the U.K. Parliament remotely in March, two weeks after the start of the invasion. He echoed World War II leader Winston Churchill’s famous “never surrender” speech, vowing that Ukrainians “will fight till the end at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost.”
Before Sunak took office, Zelenskyy had formed a bond with Boris Johnson, who was one of Ukraine’s most vocal backers while he was U.K. prime minister. Sunak took office in October and has pledged to maintain the U.K.’s support.
It will be Zelenskyy’s second known trip visit abroad since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. He visited the U.S. in December.
Zelenskyy may be seeking Western pledges of more advanced weapons before potential spring offensives by both Russia and Ukraine.
In Brussels, there were increasing expectations that the Ukrainian leader might also make his first visit to European Union institutions since the war began.
Leaders from 27-nation bloc will be gathering for a summit in Brussels on Thursday. That would enable Zelenskyy to meet with all major leaders of the bloc in one day. Zelenskyy has often addressed EU summits only through video calls from Ukraine.
The EU’s legislature has also slated a special plenary session in Brussels for Thursday in the hopes that Zelenskyy will come following his trip to Britain.
The London visit came as Russian forces blasted areas of eastern Ukraine with more artillery bombardments, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday, in what Kyiv authorities believe is part of a new thrust by the Kremlin’s forces before the invasion anniversary.
Russian forces over the past day launched major shelling attacks on areas near the front line in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, killing a 74-year-old woman and wounding a 16-year-old girl in the border town of Vovchansk, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
Russian forces in Ukraine are focusing their efforts on “waging a counteroffensive” in the country’s industrial east, with the aim of taking full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
Russian troops launched assaults near Bakhmut and Vuhledar, two mining towns in the Donetsk region that have been among Moscow’s key targets, Ukrainian officials said.
Seizing Bakhmut could severely disrupt Ukraine’s military supply routes. It would also open a door for Moscow’s forces to drive toward key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk.
Ukrainian authorities say the Kremlin’s goal is to complete full control of the Donbas, an expansive industrial area bordering Russia. That would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a major battlefield success after months of setbacks and help him rally public opinion behind the war.
Military analysts say that after a Ukrainian counteroffensive that started last summer and recaptured large areas from Russia, the war has been largely static in recent months.
Russia is now also trying to break through Ukrainian lines near the towns of Avdiivka and Marinka in Donetsk, as well as near Kreminna, a front-line town in the Luhansk region which lies along a key Russian supply route, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
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Raf Casert contributed to this report from Brussels.
Wreckage, rescue and hope in Turkey's earthquake epicenter
Zeliha Hisir tried to speak, but could barely move after her hourslong rescue Tuesday near the epicenter of a powerful earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria.
The 58-year-old woman's eyes darted around in shock and relief as a rescue crew covered her in a bright pink and green fuzzy blanket. Dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt, she had survived through freezing temperatures in Kahramanmaras.
Her son, Mufit Hisir, told The Associated Press that firefighters who flew in from Antalya had rescued his relatives.
“Two hours ago my sibling was rescued after a six-hour effort. And my mother’s rescue took two hours. They’re both well,” he said.
Crowds gathered at wreckage sites throughout Turkey, vapor showing the cold air as people breathed in and out in anticipation of reaching more survivors. Even those who had emerged or escaped collapse in Monday's magnitude 7.8 earthquake and its aftershocks now had to sleep in cars, outside or in government shelters.
In the town of Nurdagi, residents who lost loved ones said relatives could have been saved if rescue teams had arrived earlier. Steel rods jutted out of destroyed concrete like vines that rescuers had to work around in the town nestled below snowcapped hills.
“My sister has four children. She has one sister-in-law, in-laws and nephews and nieces. They’re all gone. They’re all gone,” Nilufer Sarigoz said, putting her face in her hands and sobbing.
Men cried as they used their hands to bless four dead bodies wrapped in blankets in the back of a pickup truck.
Sixteen-year-old Havva Topal still hadn't heard from her uncle, his wife and children, who were in a burning building.
“We’ve heard nothing, no news," she said. "The building collapsed after the earthquake and then a fire started 15 to 20 minutes later. No firefighters came, no excavators. We tried to save them on our own, by scooping water out with plates.”
“Our landlord’s spouse was brought out yesterday,” she later added. "They were charred, in pieces, in a horrible condition.”
Race to find survivors as quake aid pours into Turkey, Syria
Search teams and aid poured into Turkey and Syria on Tuesday as rescuers working in freezing temperatures and sometimes using their bare hands dug through the remains of buildings flattened by a powerful earthquake. The death toll soared above 7,200 and was still expected to rise.
But with the damage spread over a wide area, the massive relief operation often struggled to reach devastated towns, and voices that had been crying out from the rubble fell silent.
“We could hear their voices, they were calling for help," said Ali Silo, whose two relatives could not be saved in the Turkish town of Nurdagi.
In the end, it was left to Silo, a Syrian who arrived a decade ago, and other residents to recover the bodies and those of two other victims.
Monday's magnitude 7.8 quake and a cascade of strong aftershocks cut a swath of destruction that stretched hundreds of kilometers (miles) across southeastern Turkey and neighboring Syria. The shaking toppled thousands of buildings and heaped more misery on a region wracked by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis. One temblor that followed the first registered at magnitude 7.5, powerful in its own right.
Unstable piles of metal and concrete made the search efforts perilous, while freezing temperatures made them ever more urgent, as worries grew about how long trapped survivors could last in the cold. Snow swirled around rescuers in Turkey's Malatya province, according to footage circulated by the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The scale of the suffering — and the accompanying rescue effort — were staggering.
More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the debris in Turkey alone, and some 380,000 have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, said Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay. They huddled in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centers, while others spent the night outside in blankets gathering around fires.
Many took to social media to plead for assistance for loved ones believed to be trapped under the rubble. Anadolu quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying all calls were being “collected meticulously” and the information relayed to search teams.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 13 million of the country's 85 million people were affected, and he declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. Turkey was already grappling with an economic downturn ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections in May.
Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergencies officer with the World Health Organization, said up to 23 million people could be affected in the entire quake-hit area, calling it a “crisis on top of multiple crises.”
Turkey is home to millions of refugees from the Syrian civil war. The affected area in Syria is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, where millions live in extreme poverty and rely on humanitarian aid to survive.
Teams from nearly 30 countries around the world headed for Turkey or Syria.
As promises of help flooded in, including a pledge of $100 million from the United Arab Emirates, Turkey sought to accelerate the effort by allowing only vehicles carrying aid to enter the worst-hit provinces of Kahramanmaras, Adiyaman and Hatay.
The United Nations said it was “exploring all avenues” to get supplies to rebel-held northwestern Syria, and it released $25 million from its emergency fund to help kick-start the humanitarian response in Turkey and Syria.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the road leading to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing from Turkey to northern Syria was damaged, temporarily disrupting aid delivery to the rebel-held northwest. Bab al-Hawa is the only crossing through which U.N. aid is allowed into the area.
Dujarric said the U.N. is preparing a convoy to cross the conflict lines within Syria. But that would likely require a new agreement with President Bashar Assad's government, which has laid siege to rebel-held areas throughout the civil war.
Read more: Turkey earthquake: Missing Bangladeshi student rescued from collapsed building
Volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets have years of experience rescuing people from buildings destroyed by Syrian and Russian airstrikes in the rebel-held enclave, but they say the earthquake has overwhelmed their capabilities.
Mounir al-Mostafa, the deputy head of the White Helmets, said they were able to respond efficiently to up to 30 locations at a time, but now face calls for help from more than 700.
“Teams are present in those locations, but the available machinery and equipment are not enough,” he said, adding that the first 72 hours after the earthquake were crucial for any rescue effort.
Nurgul Atay told The Associated Press she could hear her mother's voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province. But efforts to get into the ruins had been futile without any heavy equipment to help.
“If only we could lift the concrete slab, we'd be able to reach her,” she said. “My mother is 70 years old, she won't be able to withstand this for long.”
But help did reach some. Several dramatic rescues were reported across the region as survivors, including small children, were pulled from the rubble more than 30 hours after the earthquake.
Residents in a Syrian town discovered a crying infant whose mother apparently gave birth to her while buried in the rubble of a five-story apartment building, relatives and a doctor said.
The newborn was found buried under the debris with her umbilical cord still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was found dead, they said.
The baby was the only member of her family to survive from the building collapse in the small town of Jinderis, next to the Turkish border, Ramadan Sleiman, a relative, told The Associated Press.
Turkey has large numbers of troops in the border region and has tasked the military with aiding in the rescue efforts, including setting up tents for the homeless and a field hospital in Hatay province.
A navy ship docked on Tuesday at the province’s port of Iskenderun, where a hospital collapsed, to transport survivors in need of medical care to a nearby city.
Read more: Earthquake death toll crosses 5,000 as Turkey, Syria seek survivors
A large fire at the port, caused by containers that toppled over during the earthquake, sent thick plumes of black smoke into the sky. The Defense Ministry said the blaze was extinguished with the help of military aircraft, but live footage broadcast by CNN Turk showed it was still burning.
Turkey’s emergency management agency said the total number of deaths in the country had passed 5,400, with over 31,000 people injured.
The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed over 800, with some 1,400 injured, according to the Health Ministry. At least 1,000 people have died in the rebel-held northwest, according to the White Helmets, with more than 2,300 injured.
The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.
Greece: 3 dead after boat with migrants hits rocks
Three migrants died and 16 others were rescued off the Greek island of Lesbos on Tuesday after a dinghy transporting them from the nearby coast of Turkey hit rocks in high winds, authorities said. The coast guard said the three bodies were recovered off the eastern coast of the island, adding that a rescue effort involving two patrol boats, a helicopter and ground crews was underway to search for others possibly missing. None of the people on the dinghy had been given life jackets. The tragedy in the eastern Aegean Sea occurred two days after four children and a woman died when a boat carrying more than 40 migrants smashed into rocks on island of Leros.
UK police officer, exposed as serial rapist, jailed for life
A former London police officer was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison with a minimum term of 30 years for raping and sexually assaulting a dozen women over a 17-year period.
Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick, 48, admitted last month he was a serial rapist in what prosecutors described as one of the most shocking cases involving a serving police officer.
Carrick, who joined the force in 2001, pleaded guilty to 49 offenses including 24 counts of rape and charges including assault, attempted rape and false imprisonment. His crimes took place between 2003 and 2020.
During Tuesday's sentencing hearing, Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said the former officer “took monstrous advantage of women” behind a public appearance of propriety and trustworthiness.
“You brazenly raped and sexually assaulted a number of women, some very brutally, and you behaved as if you were untouchable. You were bold and at times relentless, trusting that no victim would overcome her shame and fear to report you," the judge told Carrick.
“For nearly two decades, you were proved right but now a combination of those 12 women, by coming forward, and your police colleagues, by acting on their evidence, have exposed you and brought you low," she added.
Authorities said Carrick used his status as a police officer to control and coerce his victims.
The Metropolitan Police said his crimes had a “devastating impact” on the force, and apologized to victims after it emerged that nine allegations of rape and other crimes were made against Carrick between 2000 and 2021. He was only suspended from the force after his arrest for a rape complaint in 2021.
Europe bans Russian diesel, other oil products over Ukraine
Europe imposed a ban Sunday on Russian diesel fuel and other refined oil products, slashing energy dependency on Moscow and seeking to further crimp the Kremlin’s fossil fuel earnings as punishment for invading Ukraine.
The ban comes along with a price cap agreed by the Group of Seven allied democracies. The goal is allowing Russian diesel to keep flowing to countries like China and India and avoiding a sudden price rise that would hurt consumers worldwide, while reducing the profits funding Moscow’s budget and war.
Diesel is key for the economy because it is used to power cars, trucks carrying goods, farm equipment and factory machinery. Diesel prices have been elevated due to recovering demand after the COVID-19 pandemic and limits on refining capacity, contributing to inflation for other goods worldwide.
Read: Dozens of soldiers freed in Russia-Ukraine prisoner swap
The new sanctions create uncertainty about prices as the 27-nation European Union finds new supplies of diesel from the U.S., Middle East and India to replace those from Russia, which at one point delivered 10% of Europe’s total diesel needs. Those are longer journeys than from Russia’s ports, stretching available tankers.
Prices also could be driven up by reviving demand from China as the economy rebounds after the end of draconian COVID-19 restrictions.
The price cap of $100 per barrel for diesel, jet fuel and gasoline is to be enforced by barring insurance and shipping services from handling diesel priced over the limit. Most of those companies are located in Western countries.
It follows a $60-per-barrel cap on Russian crude that took effect in December and is supposed to work the same way. Both the diesel and oil caps could be tightened later.
“Once we have these price caps set, we can squeeze the Russian price and deny them, deny (President Vladimir) Putin money for his war without a price spike that’s going to hurt Western economies and developing economies,” said Thomas O’Donnell, a global fellow with the Washington-based Wilson Center.
Read: European inflation eases for 3rd month but prices still bite
The diesel price cap will not bite immediately because it was set at about what Russian diesel trades for. Russia’s chief problem now will be finding new customers, not evading the price ceiling. However, the cap aims to prevent Russian gains from any sudden price spikes in refined oil products.
Analysts say there might be a price bump initially as markets sort out the changes. But they say the embargo should not cause a price spike if the cap works as intended and Russian diesel keeps flowing to other countries.
Diesel fuel at the pump has been flat since the start of December, costing 1.80 euros per liter ($7.37 per gallon) as of Jan. 30, according to the weekly oil market report issued by the European Union’s executive commission. Pump prices in Germany, the EU’s largest economy, fell 2.6 cents to 1.83 euros per liter ($7.48 per gallon) as of Jan. 31.
The ban provides for a 55-day grace period for diesel loaded on tankers before Sunday, a step aimed at avoiding ruffling markets. European Union officials say importers have had time to adjust since the ban was announced in June.
Russia earned more than $2 billion from diesel sales to Europe in December alone as importers appear to have stocked up with added purchases ahead of the ban.
Europe has already banned Russian coal and most crude oil, while Moscow has cut off most shipments of natural gas.