This week’s earthquakes have claimed thousands of lives in both Turkey and Syria. On our reaction platform NUjij we were asked why Turkey receives more aid and attention than Syria. That has a number of reasons.
Volg de ontwikkelingen rond de aardbevingen in Turkije en Syrië in ons liveblog.
Bevingen waren het zwaarst in Turkije
De zware aardbevingen maandagochtend vonden vooral plaats op Turks grondgebied. De bevingen waren zo heftig dat ze ook in Syrië gevolgen hadden. Maar het epicentrum (het punt op het aardoppervlak direct boven de beving) lag in Turkije. Daar werd de beving het sterkst gevoeld en is de schade ook het grootst.
Turkije heeft sowieso vaker te maken met aardbevingen dan Syrië. Dat komt doordat het land op een aantal breuklijnen tussen aardplaten ligt. De aardbevingen van deze week vonden plaats in het zuiden van Turkije, maar ook het noorden heeft vaak te maken met zware bevingen.
The first quake hit Monday morning at 4:17 am near the Turkish city of Gaziantep. It had a magnitude of 7.8 and is therefore considered a strong to very strong quake. That is comparable to the detonation of a large nuclear weapon. Later on Monday, another strong quake (7.5) occurred in the province of Kahramanmaras. In the following days, according to the Turkish disaster relief service AFAD, more hundreds smaller earthquakes occur in the same area.
Nineteen minutes after the first quake around Gaziantep, a magnitude 5.6 quake struck near the Syrian city of Aleppo. That was a fairly strong quake, but not as strong as those in Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras.
The earthquake in Aleppo was a result of the first earthquake in Gaziantep. It occurred on a lateral fault of the major fault line that runs through Turkey. As in Turkey, there were aftershocks in Syria. None of them had a magnitude above 5.0 in Syria.
Most of the victims fell in Turkey
To date, by far the most victims have been in Turkey. The earthquakes there have claimed nearly 19,000 lives, the Turkish disaster agency AFAD reported on Friday. That figure is expected to rise even further, because there are still people under the rubble.
Syria has so far reported some 3,377 fatalities. That’s an estimate. Unlike Turkey, the country does not have a national department dealing with disaster management. As a result, the figures are not fully collected and checked anywhere.
The Syrian government only reports the deaths in the areas it controls. A large part of the affected area in Syria is in the hands of various rebel groups. They have been fighting against the government army since 2011 and consider the areas they control to be independent of the Assad government. As a result, government agencies cannot enter those areas to count victims.
Volunteer organization De Witte Helmen is the only one to provide figures on casualties from areas controlled by the rebels. Many media, including NU.nl, therefore add up the figures of the Syrian government and the White Helmets. But that does not give a complete picture of the situation.
The figures from Turkey are more complete and reliable, which makes reporting easier for the media. In Syria it will take much longer before the scale of the disaster is clear. We can assume, however, that there are fewer victims than in Turkey.
Unfortunately, this content cannot be displayedWe do not have permission for the necessary cookies. Accept the cookies to view this content.
Isolated Syria dependent on international emergency aid
As a result of the civil war, many countries have put their relationship with Syria on the back burner. The Netherlands also currently has no staff working in the embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus. The Dutch USAR team is only active in Turkey. The search and rescue team does not have permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to go to Syria.
Syria is mainly dependent on emergency aid from organizations such as the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations. But the civil war has also complicated the delivery of emergency aid. Due to the lack of information, aid organizations cannot estimate where they are most needed. In addition, various studies show that the emergency aid that is provided often not in the right place ends up.
Rebel-held areas in Syria are especially difficult to reach. The Syrian government army has surrounded those regions, with the help of Russian troops. Turkey has closed the border, except for one border post. That border crossing is located between the Turkish city of Iskenderun and the Syrian city of Idlib, two cities that were hit hard by the earthquakes.
0:42Erdogan gets support, Assad doesn’t
As a member of NATO, Turkey can count on the support of other member states after the earthquakes. Turkey is not a member of the European Union, but that organization also promised “full solidarity” in a letter. “Your people are going through horrific calamity. We stand ready to step up our support,” EU leaders wrote to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad did not receive that letter of support, while the victims in Syria are experiencing similar calamities. However, EU leaders called for “allowing aid workers access to the victims in Syria, wherever they are”.
Unlike Turkey, Syria did not ask for international aid immediately after the earthquakes. When asked why the EU had not yet offered aid to Syria, an EU spokesman replied on Tuesday: “Because they have not yet asked for it.”
On Wednesday, Syria still appealed to RescEU, the EU’s global disaster relief fund. Syria also receives emergency aid from the United Nations, to which the Netherlands contributes. The first truckload of relief supplies arrived at the border crossing at Bab al-Hawa in northwestern Syria on Thursday.
Krijg een melding bij nieuwe berichten
