Turkey-Syria earthquake- latest: Desperation grips Syria as food supplies start to run out

A small convoy has crossed from Turkey into Syria’s rebel-held northwest with desperately needed medicines, blankets, tents and UN shelter kits.

It is the first aid to reach the enclave, three days after the devastating earthquakes.

Before the convoy of six trucks, the only cargo coming across the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkey-Syria border was a steady stream of bodies of earthquake victims – Syrian refugees who had fled the war in their country and settled in Turkey. Tearful survivors carried the remains of their loved ones wrapped in sheets, while others waited on the Syrian side to receive them.

Under an agreement at the UN Security Council, Bab al Hawa is the only crossing the United Nations is allowed to use to deliver aid from Turkey to the enclave. But the chaos in the aftermath of the quake, damaged roads and piles of debris around the crossing prevented the UN from delivering aid.

Smaller aid groups have reportedly brought in some aid across other border crossings, but UN officials have been reluctant to break protocol.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday to express continued support and discuss how the United States can continue efforts to provide assistance in Turkey and Syria following the earthquakes.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the US will continue to demand unhindered humanitarian access to Syria and urged Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government to immediately allow aid through all border crossings.

A British family’s baby monitor has captured the moment a deadly earthquake struck Turkey, reports my colleague Mary-Kate Findon.

This video shows little Katelyn’s cot shaking as the area was rocked by the earthquake which was felt as far as Egypt.

The family, from Hull, were on holiday in Turkey when the devastating event took place.

Lemi Gezer says he was in Istanbul when the quake hit, but his wife Victoria and baby were in Adana, much closer to the epicentre.

He immediately drove for 12 hours to reach his family, who were safe.

Our columnist Mary Dejevsky writes:

ome natural disasters, however devastating, remain just that: natural disasters. Others trigger changes that might have taken much longer or never happened at all. The earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria this week could turn out to be among them, if not now, then in the coming months.

There can scarcely be any part of the world where such a disaster could potentially have a greater impact than here, along a fault line that is not only geological – but political and cultural. With the chaotic aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq, the rise of Isis, and Syria’s still not ended civil war, the region has experienced quite enough volatility in recent decades – without the addition of this major catastrophe.

That the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, had been gradually reasserting his power over most of Syria and was preparing for a meeting with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – intended as a first step back to international acceptance – is a particularly grim irony. The fate of this encounter, and the prospects for a Turkey-Syria rapprochement, is just one of the big uncertainties created by the disaster.

The official death toll from the earthquakes has now risen above 20,000.

The number of confirmed fatalities in Turkey rose to 17,406, health minister Fahrettin Koca said – putting it on a par with the earthquake in northwest Turkey which killed more than 17,000 people in 1999.

In Syria, already devastated by nearly 12 years of civil war, more than 3,300 people have died, according to the government and a rescue service in the rebel-held northwest.

This appears to make it the most deadly seismic event since the magnitude 7 earthquake which killed 316,000 people in Haiti in January 2010.

The Independent is asking readers to help by giving generously to an organsiation providing aid to those in desperate need.

All funds raised will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Turkey-Syria earthquake appeal, which brings together leading UK aid charities to help with the search efforts and provide vital medicines, clean water and temporary accommodation.

The US Agency for International Development has announced that it will provide $85m in urgent humanitarian assistance to Turkey and Syria.

“USAID is providing emergency food and shelter for refugees and newly displaced people, winter supplies to help families brave the cold, critical health care services to provide trauma support, safe drinking water to prevent disease, and hygiene and sanitation assistance to keep people safe and healthy,” USAID said in a statement.

In the city of Nurdagi, situated some 35 miles from the epicentre of the earthquake, Mehmet Yilmaz was among a crowd of people who watched as construction machines tore at what remained of the building where six members of his family — including three children and a three-month-old baby — were trapped.

“There’s no hope,” the 67-year-old, who has not moved from the area for three days, told the Associated Press. “We can’t give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs and there was nothing.

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.

The earthquakes which hit Syria on 6 February is “another layer of crisis” for the country, Unicef has said.

Syria has faced more than a decade of conflict, a worsening economic crisis, and a cholera outbreak declared in September 2022.

Unicef’s Eva Hinds told The Independent that experiencing the earthquake was likely to bring back memories of a time when fighting was “very, very active.”

A British aid worker said he has never experienced “this level of suffering, death and destruction” following the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

Atiqur Rahman, who works as head of development for the Global Relief Trust, told the PA news agency he was in Syria when the 7.8 magnitude quake hit and said he thought a “high-speed train was going past the building”.

After hearing the situation in the Turkish city of Antakya was worse, his team drove there to find his colleagues based in the area had all lost their homes – with one fatally crushed by the rubble.