Canada to help Earthquake ravaged regions in Turkey and Syria
According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is sending $10 million in aid to assist with the reaction to the deadly earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Syria on Monday.
After the magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which was followed by an earthquake of approximately equal power, destroyed homes and other structures in the area, at least 5,000 people have died and thousands more have been injured. The $10 million number is a “initial” response, according to International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan, who was speaking as he exited a cabinet meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday. Canada is currently undertaking a “needs assessment” to determine what the next steps should be.
READ MORE: 7.8 Magnitude Earthquake in Turkey: is Canada safe from Disasters
Although no Canadian teams have been dispatched as of yet, the minister stressed that “nothing” is off the table.
According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at than 3,500 people have died and 22,000 have been injured across Turkey as a whole.
According to the Health Ministry, there have been over 800 fatalities and 1,400 injuries in Syria’s government-controlled territories. The White Helmets, the emergency group in charge of the rescue efforts, report that at least 800 people have died and more than 2,200 have been injured in the northwest of the nation, which is controlled by rebels.
Grim images from Turkey and Syria
Rescuers work 24/7 in order to find people alive married under the rubbles of collapsed buildings on each side of the border. Many survivors feel lucky to be alive while others are found dead under tones of concrete and steel.
A woman gave birth under the rubble, baby was pulled out alive while the mother did not make it.
Few photographs, however, capture the anguish as well as one taken in the Turkish province of Kahramanmaraş, where a father holds the hand of his deceased teenage daughter as rescuers and bystanders search through the collapsed structure where she passed away on Monday.
Irmak, 15, is being held by Mesut Hancer, who is crouched amid the debris, while she rests on her bed underneath the concrete slabs, shattered windows, and crumbled bricks that once were flats. A man trying to break through the ruins with a sledgehammer is standing close to the father and daughter.
Region siting on major fault lines
Major fault lines run through the area, which frequently experiences earthquakes. Similarly strong earthquakes that struck northwest Turkey in 1999 claimed over 18,000 lives.
The earthquake on Monday was recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey as 7.8, with a depth of 18 kilometres (11 miles). A second earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck hours later, more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) away and probably as a result of the first.
The Turkish government said on Tuesday morning that 3,549 people had died and 20,534 had been injured as a result of the earthquake. The calamity has worsened the devastation caused by more than 11 years of civil conflict on the Syrian side of the border, where 1,602 dead have been confirmed, increasing the total number of fatalities in both nations to 5,151. The disaster management organisation in Turkey reported receiving 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 were verified.
Recep Tayyip Erdoan, the president of Turkey, named the ten provinces affected by the earthquakes disaster zones and proclaimed a three-month state of emergency there.
