Turkey Erdogan promises reconstruction after earthquake Our worst disaster

Turkey, Erdogan promises reconstruction after earthquake: “Our worst disaster”

FROM OUR REPORTER
GAZIANTEP – The worst catastrophe in the last 100 years. There are 35,418 dead from the “big earthquake”, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself announced yesterday after a five-hour cabinet meeting at the headquarters of the civil protection agency Afad. 8,000 were rescued, including Muhammed Cafer, 18, who flexed his fingers as he was lifted from the rubble at Kahramanmaras, and Muhammed Yeninar, 17, and his brother Baki, 21, who were found alive in the same region. And while the relief efforts are really coming to an end, they are now worried about the wounded. “The rescued are in poor condition and need life-saving treatment,” Yilmaz Aydin, a doctor working at a field hospital in Antakya, told AFP.

However, from Syria, the latest data speaks of 5,714 casualties (data reported by the Syrian government and by the rebels who control most of the affected areas). While Ismail Abdullah of the Idlib Corriere White Helmets states that 3,000 people have been rescued and that the White Helmets will announce the end of operations in the next few hours. And when two more gates were opened yesterday, that of Bab el Salam and that of Al-Ra’ee, and a United Nations convoy entered the country from the gate of Bab el Hawa, Ismail Abudllah declared: “Here we need everything from above all Medicines to treat the wounded, but also tents and food».

Controversies over building abuses and possible speculation are picking up steam again in Turkey. Erdogan has promised that he will start “constructing 30,000 houses” “immediately, early next month” in March. The aim is to rebuild the areas affected by the earthquake “within the framework of an annual plan”, i.e. by February next year. But one of Turkey’s leading business associations, Türkonfed, estimates that the earthquake caused losses of $84 billion in Turkey’s economy. Meanwhile, the demolition of collapsing buildings after the quake is also worrying.

In Gaziantep, among the engineers sent by the Ministry of Infrastructure to work with AFAD is Sadik Yurek, who along with his colleagues came here to assess which buildings are unsafe or not. “I’ve been there since Sunday. This is a job that takes time and cannot be based on a rough first look,” he explains, showing the cracks in which he and his colleagues sleep.