Skip to main content

Earthquake Death Toll Tops 25,000 in Turkey and Syria

Several dramatic rescues took place on Saturday, as survivors emerged from the rubble after days of being trapped.

Residents walk through the rubble of their homes in Antakya, Turkey. Boris Roessler/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Rescuers in Turkey and Syria continued to pull survivors from fallen buildings on Saturday, as the death toll from a 7.8 magnitude earthquake reached 25,000.

The quake last Monday and its aftershocks led thousands of buildings to collapse in the region, injuring tens of thousands of people and leaving millions homeless during below-freezing temperatures. Turkish President Recep Tayypi Erdogan, touring some of the devastated cities, has called it the “disaster of the century.”

So far, the vast majority of those killed—about 22,000 of the total victims—have been found in Turkey. In war-torn Syria, especially in opposition-held territory, rescuers have been forced to work with extremely limited resources, sometimes digging with their hands and simple construction tools to locate survivors. They’ve criticized the international community for failing to offer them enough aid, as the Syrian government in Damascus has restricted access to the area during the war. The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, said he wanted Syrian rescuers to receive more assistance, but noted on Saturday that the situation there “was not clear yet.”

In Turkey, meanwhile, several dramatic rescues took place on Saturday, as survivors emerged from the rubble after days of being trapped. A family of five was pulled free after 129 hours, according to the Washington Post, citing a Turkish news outlet, while a 4-year-old was found alive after 130 hours. In southern Turkey, after 128 hours, rescuers saved a baby, believed to be just two months old.
 
But hopes for rescuing more survivors are fading. “[T]he probability of finding survivors under the rubble in below-freezing temperatures is becoming a lower probability,” Belit Tasdemir, a UN liaison officer at AKUT Search and Rescue Association, told CNN, adding that “we’re approaching the end of the search-and-rescue window.”
 
A massive graveyard is now under construction on the outskirts of Antakya, also in southern Turkey. As bulldozers dig pits in the fields, the Associated Press reported, ambulances arrive continuously, loaded with black body bags.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate

We Noticed You Have An Ad Blocker On.

Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism? We're a nonprofit (so it's tax-deductible), and reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget.

We noticed you have an ad blocker on. Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism?