Turkiye and Syria suffer from shortages of water, fuel, and power

People who survived the deadly earthquake in Turkiye and Syria are being pushed to the secondary disaster, as they struggle to get water, food, and fuel to get by. Survivors are barely coping with on the street where most infrastructure is destroyed.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, held a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday. “It’s now a race against time. Rescue teams are doing everything they can to save lives amid freezing winter conditions and continued aftershocks,” Mr. Ghebreyesus said. “Survivors need safe shelter, food, clean water, and medical service.”

The WHO estimates that approximately 23 million people have been directly or indirectly affected by the quake in Turkey and Syria. In Syria, a de facto state of anarchy because of the 13-year-long ongoing civil war, the quake destroyed critical infrastructures, including water and sewage, causing cholera outbreaks, respiratory diseases, and secondary wound infections. Since August 2022, about 85,000 cholera cases have been reported from Syria.

The AFP cited Robert Holden, the WHO’s earthquake response incident manager, who said that many people are surviving “out in the open in worsening and horrific conditions, and the priority is to make sure that people survive.” “We are in real danger of seeing a secondary disaster which may cause harm to more people than the initial disaster if we don’t move with the same pace and intensity as we are doing on the search and rescue side,” he said.

It is also pointed out that post-earthquake distress and trauma should be addressed. Michael Ryan, who heads the WHO’s response to disease outbreaks, said that the psychological distress that the local community went through for 60 hours in the wake of the earthquake would affect them for the next 60 years.


empty@donga.com