7.9 Earthquake in southern Turkey with damage also in Syria

[lizkat]

This looks terrible... buildings are rubble as far away as Lebanon and Cyprus as well.

Major earthquake kills 3,700 in Turkey and Syria, weather hits survivors

The magnitude 7.8 quake was the worst to strike Turkey this century and it heaped more destruction on Syrian cities already devastated by war.

www.reuters.com

 

[Pumbaa]

The magnitude 7.8 quake, which hit in the early darkness of a winter morning, worst to strike Turkey this century. It was also felt in Cyprus and Lebanon. It was followed in the early afternoon by another large quake, magnitude 7.7.

Quite uncommon.

Thoughts and prayers and international aid offers.

 

[Herdfan]

A 7.9? Wow. And a 7.7 aftershook, double wow. Thoughts and prayers for everyone affected.

 

[Alli]

It’s amazing there were any survivors at all. That’s catastrophic!

 

[Roller]

We're somewhat accustomed to seeing what happens during strong shaking and its aftermath, but the footage of entire buildings collapsing is horrifying, especially in this troubled part of the world. I'm trying to decide to which international aid agency I should donate to help these people.

 

[shadow puppet]

The death toll has surpassed 17,000. I can't even get my brain wrapped around that large of a number.

 

[lizkat]

The death toll has surpassed 17,000. I can't even get my brain wrapped around that large of a number.

I'm afraid that number, although horrifying, is bound to rise further as road access is regained to some of the affected areas.

I remembered that terrible quake in Pakistan near Kashmir that killed over 80,000 people, but had to look up the date (2005). Initial reports of casualities were lower but as access to roads was regained the toll continued to climb, and there were almost a thousand aftershocks. Satellite measurements taken later of the Himalayan mountains directly above the epicenter of the initial quake showed the ground there had been raised by about 3 meters. The quake was quite shallow, 8 or 10 miles below ground level.​

​

hhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzaffarabad​

This quake in Turkey was also fairly shallow, about 10 miles deep. That and the structure of the buildings involved are problematic: many are stone or mud in rural areas so less likely to be quake proof or built to modern codes for quake resistance.

 

[shadow puppet]

I'm afraid that number, although horrifying, is bound to rise further as road access is regained to some of the affected areas.

Yes, I fully believe it will rise. But just a couple days ago it was 8 or 9K. Some reports today are even as high as 20,000 but I didn't fully trust the sources so went with the current number that seemed more reliable.

 

[lizkat]

Yes, I fully believe it will rise. But just a couple days ago it was 8 or 9K. Some reports today are even as high as 20,000 but I didn't fully trust the sources so went with the current number that seemed more reliable.

The time of year is an aggravating factor as well. Delay in getting to blocked areas means ancillary risk of freezing to death even if rescues might have been possible otherwise. Some of the Reuters photos of structural damage make the enormity of the task clear even in areas that are accessible.

Hope fades for survivors as Turkey-Syria earthquake toll passes 20,000

Cold, hunger and despair gripped hundreds of thousands of people left homeless after the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria three days ago as the death toll passed 20,000 on Thursday.

www.reuters.com

 

[Roller]

Yes, I fully believe it will rise. But just a couple days ago it was 8 or 9K. Some reports today are even as high as 20,000 but I didn't fully trust the sources so went with the current number that seemed more reliable.

This isn't scientific by any means, but if the estimates of the number of buildings destroyed reaching 5,000 or more are even close, 20,000 casualties isn't out of the question. And, in places like this, especially Syria, I doubt if there was even a roughly accurate accounting of the population. The number of indirect deaths due to exposure, lack of food and water, and disease will make the toll even higher. Bless the aid organizations that are willing and able to provide assistance on the ground.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

The death toll has surpassed 17,000. I can't even get my brain wrapped around that large of a number.

227,898 were killed or listed as missing in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. I feel as if that massive number got buried by the shocking footage at different locations. You'd see a couple people getting swept away or holding on to a tree or structure for dear life, but it seems like it didn't get said enough that, that happened to hundreds of thousands of people.

 

[NT1440]

Sanctions are preventing emergency equipment (machinery) and adequate medical supplies to Syria.

So in mindset of what they’re actually intended to do, they’re working. Monstrous behavior from the US.

 

[lizkat]

The USA doesn't deserve a ding for actually trying now to provide assistance where it's needed, despite whatever one may think of the sanctions against Assad, a butcher as bad as his old man was.

Part of the problem in the aid pipeline is the ongoing conflict in northwestern Syria, although the UN is trying to arrange for a ceasefire to let humanitarian supplies through.

The USAID has already dispatched 160 people, equipment, 12 dogs, helicopters and pledged $85M in further aid to Turkey and via local USAID partners (like the White Helmets) to Syria as well.

"We call on all parties to the conflict in Syria to commit to a comprehensive ceasefire to enable humanitarian workers and rescuers to reach those in need without fear of attacks," said Paulo Pinheiro, chairperson of the U.N. Syria Commission.

USAID said on Monday that Administrator Samantha Power was working with the nonprofit Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, to identify ways that the agency can assist in the relief efforts and “the need for the border between Türkiye and Syria to remain open for critical aid to flow.” Some 3,000 White Helmet volunteers are on the ground pulling people from collapsed buildings.

https://www.devex.com/news/how-usaid-is-helping-after-the-earthquake-in-turkey-and-syria-104926

 

[NT1440]

The USA doesn't deserve a ding for actually trying now to provide assistance where it's needed, despite whatever one may think of the sanctions against Assad, a butcher as bad as his old man was.

Part of the problem in the aid pipeline is the ongoing conflict in northwestern Syria, although the UN is trying to arrange for a ceasefire to let humanitarian supplies through.

The USAID has already dispatched 160 people, equipment, 12 dogs, helicopters and pledged $85M in further aid to Turkey and via local USAID partners (like the White Helmets) to Syria as well.

https://www.devex.com/news/how-usaid-is-helping-after-the-earthquake-in-turkey-and-syria-104926

“Ongoing conflict”, is that the one where the US has set up a military base in a country they have no legal right to do, and are actively stealing 80+% of Syrian oil output?

We’re occupying the country, stealing their resources, and continuing to supply the fuel for the “conflict” via our support for Idlib. Syria today is a perfect example of the US propping up terrorist groups in an effort to destabilize an enemy. Timber Sycamore was and is a multibillion dollar “secret” effort by the US to use terrorists to overthrow a sovereign government. It never actually ended, despite the “reporting” from the likes of the NYT.


Despite the fact that Assad was one of our go-to guys to ship people to for black site torture prior to us turning on him and waging another Ghaddafi style regime change attempt.

We were never there to protect Syrians, almost everything about Obama’s war on Syria was a bold faced lie.

 

[lizkat]

“Ongoing conflict”, is that the one where the US has set up a military base in a country they have no legal right to do, and are actively stealing 80+% of Syrian oil output?

We’re occupying the country, stealing their resources, and continuing to supply the fuel for the “conflict” via our support for Idlib. Syria today is a perfect example of the US propping up terrorist groups in an effort to destabilize an enemy. Timber Sycamore was and is a multibillion dollar “secret” effort by the US to use terrorists to overthrow a sovereign government. It never actually ended, despite the “reporting” from the likes of the NYT.


Despite the fact that Assad was one of our go-to guys to ship people to for black site torture prior to us turning on him and waging another Ghaddafi style regime change attempt.

We were never there to protect Syrians, almost everything about Obama’s war on Syria was a bold faced lie.

None of that negates the fact that the USA has most recently been working through intermediaries to persuade Assad to let humanitarian aid through. Nor should anything I have posted about this suggest that I'm a fan of how the USA operates (triangulates might be a right word) in Syria regardless of which administration's stated or executed policies one chooses to look at.

So that discussion could proceed in some other thread if you like, but for here let's stay in the now of need for and provision of aid to the earthquake-afflicted. Just don't mark me down as a big fan of Assad or his late dad, nor of Obama, Trump, Biden, Putin or Erdogan. And I don't keep a scorecard for any of the militias, mercenaries, fixers and translators at play in that venue either, except to say that whichever ones at a given moment are trying to help an American soldier stuck in that mess, I'm for them in that moment, on the assumption they sure god didn't set the US policy that landed them there.​

The Syrian government has now said it will allow the aid to cross conflict lines. (Left itself room by not saying when, of course). It did include the UN on its list of cooperators. The USAID is working with UN and UN-partnered local agencies.

Syrian govt approves aid delivery across frontlines-state media

Syria's government has approved humanitarian aid delivery across the frontlines of the country's 12-year-old civil war, state media said on Friday, a move that could speed up the arrival of help for millions of people affected by Monday's deadly quake.

www.reuters.com

 

[NT1440]

USAID has been used as cover for covert operations for decades.

Remember the DNA collection that was done under the guise of a vaccination program in Afghanistan/Pakistan to try to find OBL? That was openly reported in western media.

Any country that has been in hostile relations with the US has every right to not trust the spook filled “NGO’s” offering help. History has shown time and again that we use legitimate aid as a Trojan horse to carry out covert ops.

 

[lizkat]

USAID has been used as cover for covert operations for decades.

Remember the DNA collection that was done under the guise of a vaccination program in Afghanistan/Pakistan to try to find OBL? That was openly reported in western media.

Any country that has been in hostile relations with the US has every right to not trust the spook filled “NGO’s” offering help. History has shown time and again that we use legitimate aid as a Trojan horse to carry out covert ops.

USAID also delivers food to hungry people. What is your point in pursuing the seamy side of international politics of self-interest right now in a thread about recovery from a couple of 7+ earthquakes in Turkey and Syria?

Start a new thread if you want to allege that the bad ol' USA is somehow unique in its covert use of well-meaning aid and maybe after some edits and redactions here and there, you could sell it as a screenplay; I mean there's always room for another remake of "The Quiet American" -- and certainly since Vietnam in the 1950s there have been plenty of both time and venues for the USA and other players on the world stage to slip some under-radar and self-interested government efforts into those high profile deliveries of humanitarian relief to the site of yet another natural disaster or ruinous war.

More to the point of the current recovery efforts, do you really think that a person in Syria or Turkey whose relatives are being dug out (dead or alive) from a collapsed building this week, or who is receiving food aid or blankets against the winter, give a damn if the sender of the assistance has ulterior political motives?

The victims of that quake did not set out in the predawn hours a few days ago to stage an event that would lend either their own or another government a fat chance to "get over" on anyone during a distraction. They woke up in rubble, or died, or now stand outside tombs of freezing kin and hope there will be someplace to get warmth and food. The world is responding with assistance, and that includes the USA. In times of fundamental distress, a human being does not look a gift horse in the mouth, nor care if the giver is keeping a scorecard on some other level of concern. Sure, that affords room for fat cats and power brokers and clandestine programs to abuse the situation for personal or political gain. Shall we just not send the aid because some of us are aware that mischief could be afoot under guise of generosity?

We didn't NOT send the aid that we said we would, and that I mentioned in my earlier post. The stuff from the DART response is already on the ground in Turkey and now we're working to extend that via USAID to both countries.

Also, individual Americans are among the most generous in making donations to the NGOs that reliably show up to help. We can't personally open a storefront food pantry as an alternative gesture and ensure personally in that way that our aid is "genuine." We pay taxes and some of our money goes to humanitarian relief. If we suspect that such aid is sometimes accompanied by an agent of the government whose interest is other than humanitarian, our recourse is to challenge that alleged behavior by picking up the phone and complaining to a congressman or a journalist.

In the meantime I doubt very much that most Americans would want us to stand out as a developed nation sitting on its hands watching other countries chip in to recovery from a natural disaster just because it's possible for any government to try to use the effort additionally for covert purposes.

 

[NT1440]

A pittance of what we stole being given as aid doesn’t really make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Given the scale of the immediate disaster, and the coming wave of disease, death from exposure, etc because all the vital infrastructure is destroyed we should be sending BILLIONs in aid.

Also, this is a forum, you don’t get to tell me what I want to talk about. There is no such thing as discrete actions in a hyper connected world.

 

[lizkat]

Given the scale of the immediate disaster, and the coming wave of disease, death from exposure, etc because all the vital infrastructure is destroyed we should be sending BILLIONs in aid.

Sounds good. Here's the main switchboard number for the US House: 1-202-224-3121

U.S. House of Representatives | USAGov

The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate make up the two chambers of Congress. The House has 435 members, the number representing each state is determined by population.

www.usa.gov

Also, this is a forum, you don’t get to tell me what I want to talk about.

That was just a suggestion. I too tend to drift off the original and specific topic of a thread "from time to time" lol and it nearly got me booted from a place I used to hang out in.

There is no such thing as discrete actions in a hyper connected world.

Right. Sounds like chaos theory. Whatever. Well I wouldn't want to let my engagement in this discussion to cause me to forget my soup on the stove, lest I be responsible for allowing the internet to set my house afire. It's been fun trying to stick up for a country with whose policies I often do disagree. / later

 

[NT1440]

Sounds good. Here's the main switchboard number for the US House: 1-202-224-3121

U.S. House of Representatives | USAGov

The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate make up the two chambers of Congress. The House has 435 members, the number representing each state is determined by population.

www.usa.gov

That was just a suggestion. I too tend to drift off the original and specific topic of a thread "from time to time" lol and it nearly got me booted from a place I used to hang out in.



Right. Sounds like chaos theory. Whatever. Well I wouldn't want to let my engagement in this discussion to cause me to forget my soup on the stove, lest I be responsible for allowing the internet to set my house afire. It's been fun trying to stick up for a country with whose policies I often do disagree. / later

Have a good one Liz, don’t forget that our back and forths going back to the MR days always ended with us cooling off and realizing that we’re not actually fighting with each other. We’ve been posting at each other I think all the way back to 08 when I joined there.

Enjoy your soup!