Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll rises to 24,000

Rescuers pulled out children on Friday local time from the rubble of the TurkeySyria earthquake as the toll crossed 24000 reported The Sydney Morning Herald SMHThe confirmed death toll from the deadliest quake in the region in two decades stood at more than 24000 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria four days after it hitThe stench of death hung over Turkeys eastern city of Kahramanmaras the epicentre of the first 78magnitude tremor that upturned millions of lives in the predawn hours of Monday It is located in a remote region filled with people already displaced by war reported France24Meanwhile President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said authorities should have reacted faster to this weeks huge earthquakeErdogan on Friday visited Turkeys Adiyaman province where he acknowledged the governments response was not as fast as it could have beenAlso Read Turkey earthquake Operation Dost shows friendship between India and Turkey says Turkish Envoy Firat SunelAlthough we have the largest search and rescue team in the world right now it is a reality that search efforts are not as fast as we wanted them to be he saidErdogan is standing for reelection in a vote scheduled for May 14 and his opponents have seized upon the issue to attack him The election may now be postponed due to the disasterWith anger simmering over delays in the delivery of aid and getting the rescue effort underway the disaster is likely to play into the election if it goes aheadErdogan for whom the vote was his toughest challenge in two decades in power even before the earthquake has called for solidarity and condemned what he has described as negative campaigns for political interestKemal Kilicdaroglu head of Turkeys main opposition party criticised the governments responseThe earthquake was huge but what was much bigger than the earthquake was the lack of coordination lack of planning and incompetence Kilicdaroglu said in a statementHundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in bleak winter conditions and leaders in both countries have faced questions about their response reported SMHRescuers including teams from dozens of countries toiled night and day in the ruins of thousands of wrecked buildings to find buried survivors In freezing temperatures they regularly called for silence as they listened for any sound of life from mangled concrete moundsThe United Nations warned that at least 870000 people urgently needed hot meals across Turkey and Syria In Syria alone up to 53 million people may have been made homelessThat is a huge number and comes to a population already suffering mass displacement said Sivanka Dhanapala the Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for RefugeesSyrian President Bashar alAssad made his first reported trip to affected areas since the quake visiting a hospital in Aleppo with his wife Asma state media reportedHis government also approved humanitarian aid deliveries across the frontlines of the countrys 12year civil war a move that could speed up the arrival of help for millions of desperate people The World Food Program said earlier it was running out of stocks in rebelheld northwest Syria as the state of war there complicated relief efforts reported SMHThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever