Rescue operations continued through the night of February 9, 2023, in Turkey and Syria after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake pushed the confirmed death count past 15,000. This marks the highest global earthquake death toll in more than ten years. As temperatures dropped and destruction spread across a region already scarred by Syria’s civil war, the likelihood of discovering additional survivors diminished rapidly.
Emergency teams from over two dozen countries augmented tens of thousands of local responders searching through collapsed structures. In Malatya, Turkey, journalist and rescue volunteer Ozel Pikal described a dire situation.
“There is no hope left in Malatya as of today, thus today is not a good day,” Pikal stated. “No one is emerging from the wreckage alive.” He observed eight bodies removed from one building, laid out on the ground wrapped in blankets while awaiting funeral transport. Pikal also reported that a hotel in the city had collapsed, potentially trapping over one hundred people.
With temperatures at minus 6 degrees Celsius (21 Fahrenheit), he suggested some victims may have succumbed to the cold. “The cold prevents our hands from picking up anything,” he said.
“Working tools are required.”
Government Response Under Scrutiny
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited a tent city in Kahramanmaras, near the earthquake’s epicenter, where displaced residents had gathered. He acknowledged initial delays in the government’s response but pledged that no one would “be abandoned in the streets.” Many survivors spent nights in cars, outdoors, or in public shelters. Aysan Kurt, 27, told the Associated Press: “We lack everything, a tent, a heating source, and other essentials.
Our kids are in terrible shape. We are all getting drenched in the rain, and our kids are outside in the cold.
We won’t die from the cold; we didn’t die from hunger or the earthquake.” Turkey’s disaster management agency reported 8,500 deaths within the country. In Syria, the Health Ministry recorded over 1,200 fatalities in government-controlled areas. The White Helmets, a volunteer first-responder organization, estimated at least 1,400 deaths in the rebel-held northwest.
Syria’s War Compounds the Crisis
The earthquake struck a region already devastated by over a decade of civil war. Millions had fled their homes in Syria, seeking safety in Turkey, and many of those refugees were among the deceased.
Syrian officials confirmed that the Bab al-Hawa border crossing was used to return the bodies of more than 100 Syrians who died in Turkey for burial. Mazen Alloush, an officer on the Syrian side of the border, stated that twenty more bodies were en route, all Syrian refugees who had fled the conflict. Aid operations in Syria faced significant challenges due to the ongoing war and the isolation of the rebel-held border area, surrounded by government forces backed by Russia. Western sanctions related to the conflict further complicated relief efforts.
Rare Rescues Amid the Rubble
Despite the widespread tragedy, a few rescues provided moments of hope. Polish rescuers in Turkey pulled nine people alive from the rubble, including parents with two children and a 13-year-old girl in Besni.
Two firefighters told Polish TVN24 that while the cold weather hindered their work, some survivors may have been protected by being trapped in bed with warm covers during the early-morning quake. In Kahramanmaras, three-year-old Arif Kaan was rescued nearly two days after the earthquake. Emergency workers carefully removed rubble from the boy, whose lower body was pinned under concrete slabs and twisted rebar, covering his torso with a blanket. His father, Ertugrul Kisi, who had been rescued earlier, cried as his son was freed and placed into an ambulance.
A Turkish television reporter exclaimed: “For now, the name of hope in Kahramanmaras is Arif Kaan.” In northwest Syria, residents of the village of Jinderis discovered a wailing infant on Monday, still attached by umbilical cord to her deceased mother. The newborn was the sole survivor of her family from a building collapse.
However, such stories remained uncommon. More than two days after the pre-dawn earthquake, thousands of buildings lay in ruins, and the cold continued to intensify. The death toll was expected to rise significantly.
The 2011 earthquake near Japan, which triggered a tsunami, killed nearly 20,000 people. Turkey and Syria have not provided figures for the number of people still missing.
