Amid the rubble, people wait in vain for rescuers

Desperate relatives wait in vain for rescuers to arrive

- Lorenzo Ruth Michaelson, Tondo and Deniz Barış Narh

Rescue workers in Kahramanmaraş said they could smell corpses as they dug through debris in a town now so devastated by the earthquake and its aftershocks that many buildings have been reduced entirely to rubble.

“We hope there are two people still alive under there,” said Zafer Yildiz, a volunteer, pointing towards a pile of concrete, twisted metal and furniture. “Most of the people we found were dead.”

Emergency crews, aided by members of the public, continued their searches as the death toll in Turkey and neighbouring Syria passed 12,000, with experts predicting the total will climb further and could double.

Mehmet Boskert carefully extracted a prayer book from the remains of a multi-storey building, as he dug with gloved hands in the hope of finding his brother and sister-in-law alive.

“After I managed to dig myself out from the rubble when my house collapsed, I came here to try to find them,” he said. “I can only hope, but it seems too late. The emergency teams arrived too late, and only today did they bring these diggers. I hope they can do something.”