Regional

Nine survivors pulled from Turkey’s rubble as earthquake death toll passes 40,000

Published

4 years ago

February 15, 2023

Nine survivors were rescued from the rubble in Turkey on Tuesday, more than a week after a massive earthquake struck, as the focus of the aid effort shifted to helping people now struggling without shelter or enough food in the bitter cold, Reuters reported.

The disaster, with a combined death toll in Turkey and neighbouring Syria exceeding 41,000, has ravaged cities in both countries, leaving many survivors homeless in near-freezing winter temperatures.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has acknowledged problems in the initial response to the 7.8 magnitude quake that struck early on Feb. 6 but has said the situation is now under control.

“We are facing one of the greatest natural disasters not only in our country but also in the history of humanity,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara.

Those rescued on Tuesday included two brothers, aged 17 and 21, pulled from an apartment block in Kahramanmaras province, and a Syrian man and young woman in a leopard-print headscarf in Antakya rescued after over 200 hours in the rubble. There could be further people alive still to find, said one rescuer.

But U.N. authorities have said the rescue phase is coming to a close, with the focus turning to shelter, food and schooling, read the report.

“People are suffering a lot. We applied to receive a tent, aid, or something, but up to now we didn’t receive anything,” said Hassan Saimoua, a refugee staying with his family in a playground in Turkey’s southeastern city of Gaziantep.

Saimoua and other Syrians who had found refuge in Gaziantep from the war at home but were made homeless by the quake used plastic sheets, blankets and cardboard to erect makeshift tents in the playground.

“The needs are huge, increasing by the hour,” said Hans Henri P. Kluge, the World Health Organization’s director for Europe. “Some 26 million people across both countries need humanitarian assistance.”

“There are also growing concerns over emerging health issues linked to the cold weather, hygiene and sanitation, and the spread of infectious diseases – with vulnerable people especially at risk.”

‘DAD, AFTERSHOCK!’

At a Turkish field hospital in the southern city of Iskenderun, Indian Army Major Beena Tiwari said patients had initially arrived with physical injuries but that was changing.

“Now more of the patients are coming with post-traumatic stress disorder, following all the shock that they’ve gone through during the earthquake,” she said.

Families in both Turkey and Syria said they and their children were dealing with the psychological aftermath of the quake, Reuters reported.

“Whenever he forgets, he hears a loud sound and then remembers again,” Hassan Moaz said of his 9-year-old in Aleppo, Syria. “When he’s sleeping at night and hears a sound, he wakes up and tells me: ‘Dad, aftershock!'”

A first convoy of U.N. aid entered rebel-held northwest Syria from Turkey via the newly-opened Bab al-Salam crossing.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed on Monday to allow U.N. aid to enter from Turkey via two more border crossings, marking a shift for Damascus which has long opposed cross-border aid deliveries to the rebel enclave.

Nearly 9 million people in Syria were affected by the earthquake, the United Nations said, as it launched a $400 million funding appeal.

SURVIVORS’ EXODUS

The search for survivors was about to end in the north west of Syria, said the head of the White Helmets main rescue group, Raed al Saleh.

Russia also said it was wrapping up its search and rescue work in Turkey and Syria and preparing to withdraw, Reuters reported.

The Turkish toll was 35,3418 killed, Erdogan said. More than 5,814 have died in Syria, according to a Reuters tally of reports from Syrian state media and a U.N. agency.

Survivors joined a mass exodus from earthquake-hit zones, leaving their homes and unsure if they can ever come back.

“It’s very hard … We will start from zero, without belongings, without a job,” said 22-year-old Hamza Bekry, a Syrian originally from Idlib who has lived in Antakya, in southern Turkey, for 12 years but prepared to follow his family to Isparta in southern Turkey.

More than 2.2 million people have left the worst-hit areas already, Erdogan said, and hundreds of thousands of buildings have become uninhabitable, read the report.

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Regional

Blast in Pakistan’s Dera Ismail Khan kills 11, injures 30

Published

5 hours ago

September 26, 2026

Ariana News

Eleven people were killed and 30 injured in a blast ‌in Dera Ismail Khan in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, emergency service Rescue 1122 said.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack.

The blast occurred near Aman Mela in the Darazinda area of ‌the ⁠district, Rescue 1122 said in a statement.

Rescue teams from the Darazinda station reached the scene and began relief operations, ⁠providing medical assistance to the wounded and taking them to hospital, the service ⁠said.

Security incidents have continued in the district this month, including attacks ⁠involving the Pakistani Taliban.

Regional

Imran Khan’s party postpones planned Islamabad march to October 4

Published

15 hours ago

September 26, 2026

Ariana News

Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has postponed a planned long march from Peshawar to Islamabad ‌until October 4, the chief minister of the PTI-ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Sohail Afridi, told reporters on Friday.

PTI had planned to begin the march on September 27 to press for the release of Khan, who has ⁠been in jail since 2023. The PTI’s last large-scale protest two years ago ended in deadly clashes with security forces, Reuters reported.

Earlier this week, Pakistan curbed access to its capital, Islamabad, by blocking major highways with shipping containers and deploying tens of thousands of security forces, ahead of the march planned by Khan’s supporters.

Party spokesperson Zulfi Bukhari, however, told Reuters ‌that ⁠although they had moved the planned date to October 4, they could launch the march earlier.

“We can now do it whenever we deem fit. The question is to the government, as ⁠to how long they’re willing to keep the country closed off?”, Bukhari said.

Authorities have detained three of Khan’s sisters and hundreds of ⁠party activists in recent days, citing a need to maintain public order.

Khan, 73, a former cricket star ousted ⁠by parliament in a 2022 no-confidence vote, has claimed to be a political prisoner.

Regional

Saudi Grand Mufti tells troops to be ready to sacrifice their lives fighting Houthis

State TV has ⁠in recent weeks aired footage of an alleged Houthi strike on a mosque in the kingdom’s south, and authorities have also accused the Houthis of launching an attack on Mecca, Islam’s holiest site.

Published

2 days ago

September 25, 2026

Ariana News

Saudi Arabia’s top religious authority called on soldiers in the kingdom to be ready to lay ‌down their lives to fight the Iran-backed Houthis until the group is ousted from power, a statement posted on the Saudi state news agency said.

The rare and strongly worded message by Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan Al-Fawzan was addressed to soldiers stationed at the country’s borders and drew heavily on Quranic verses and recorded sayings of the Prophet Mohammad related to sacrifice and struggle in defence of God, Reuters reported.

It comes after weeks of escalating violence between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis which has ⁠seen the Iran-backed group attack the kingdom with salvos of missiles and drones and Saudi Arabia respond with airstrikes.

Observers have been questioning whether Saudi Arabia will launch a broader military operation along with Yemeni government forces it backs.

“Protecting this great nation… and punishing anyone who seeks to lay a hand on even an inch of its territory are among the greatest duties and most virtuous acts of devotion, for which lives and souls may be sacrificed in seeking God’s pleasure,” said the statement, issued late Thursday.

Asserting the authority of the Saudi-backed internationally recognized Yemeni government over the entire country was “among the most pressing obligations,” it added.

Those government forces lost control of the vital Bab el-Mandeb waterway to the Houthis two weeks back, a blow to the kingdom, which has been mired in the conflict since ‌2015 ⁠after it launched an unsuccessful operation to oust the Houthis from the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

The recent fighting is the latest episode in 12 years of civil war in Yemen which had largely been frozen since a 2022 but has escalated again and has become linked to the wider Iran war.

“We ask God Almighty to grant you all his support, and to protect our countries and beloved Yemen from all harm. We also ask him to ⁠bring about the complete defeat of the Houthi group and those who assist and support them,” the statement said.

The Mufti’s letter adds to a growing religiously centered narrative by authorities in the conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom aimed at discrediting the Houthis, who follow a different sect of Islam.

“It is incumbent upon you, brothers serving on the front lines, to ⁠remain constantly prepared to perform your duty, to obey the rulers and your field commanders, and to carry out orders with the utmost precision, as God Almighty commanded the companions of his Prophet to do,” the statement said.

“You are following in the footsteps of the Prophet’s companions, defending the sacred sites of Muslims.”