Cape Town - With overwhelming overwhelming cries for the international community to assist following two major earthquakes affecting Türkiye and Syria, South Africa has joined over 45 countries in providing desperately-needed rescuers and aid.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday announced a three-month State of Emergency for the 10 affected provinces.
As of Tuesday the collective death toll had breached 5000, with the number expected to grow as thousands remain missing and are believed to be trapped beneath collapsed buildings.
In Syria, people could be seen using their hands to burrow through the rubble in search of any survivors.
Getting aid to that country during an 11-year war has been a struggle, as Türkiye is one of the main channels for aid to come through.
Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southern Türkiye and north-western Syria, followed by a 7.5 second quake, with dozens of aftershocks at 4.5 or more.
After several requests to intervene, disaster relief organisation Gift of the Givers (GOTG) saw its search-and-rescue volunteers depart from Cape Town International Airport for Türkiye on Tuesday, as well as from Johannesburg, with Turkish Airlines facilitating the trip.
GOTG medical head Dr Naeem Kathrada said six volunteers were CPUT lecturers in search and rescue making up 25 in total for the first group of volunteers to leave, all highly skilled with some having been with GOTG doing similar missions for 15 to 20 years.
In terms of equipment, Dr Kathrada said: “There’s basic things like jaws of life, other equipment to maintain the stability of the floor, scaffolding and poles to build it up. From Johannesburg there’s some 50 tons of equipment, specialised search and rescue equipment.
“They’ve also got some machines called life detectors, which can detect movement of humans quite a few metres underneath the ground, which have been used before and were successful in finding people under the rubble.”
On average, rescue missions are between 7-10 days. Today (Wed), its medical team will be leaving, with around 70 volunteers expected to leave in total.
GOTG volunteer and acting CPUT Department of Emergency Medical Sciences HOD Dr Simpiwe Sobuwa said: “Once we arrive on the ground, there will be a team that’s already co-ordinating efforts so they will inform us where exactly they need more help.
“Maybe there’s an area that doesn't have any rescue at all or there’s minimal rescue capacity so we then add on to that. And obviously by the time we get there, some rescuers are already fatigued, so we then continue working for drilling and searching.”
Dr Sobuwa said they’ve previously worked with GOTG on missions for the 2015 earthquake in Nepal and 2018 tsunami in Indonesia.
Turkish Consul-General Sinan Yeşildağ was present to see off the volunteers.
Yeşildağ said: “It's a big disaster for my country … and it happened at 4am in the morning so it caught people sleeping.”
Turquoise Harmony Institute regional director Dr Aydin Inal, originally from Türkiye, also said the affected areas were in south-eastern regions, including Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, Hatay and Adana, which have been the most affected.
Inal said there are many who are freezing to death.
“Turkey sits on fault lines and this earthquake took place around the region where a few fault lines converge from Turkey, the Arab Peninsula and the Mediterranean.
“Although this is known, the precautions have never been enough. One major reason for the big loss of lives is the sub-standard of buildings in that region.
“Unfortunately, building regulations are not enforced and buildings are issued licences with political and financial motivations,” Inal said.
Turkish business owner Muzafer Arslanyurekli has been staying in South Africa for 17 years.
He said: “All of my family are there. The people are struggling because it is -3, -4 degrees and they cannot go into the houses. They are mostly staying in the open places. There is no heating, no petrol. They’re staying in the cars.”
Other local organisations raising relief funds include Masjidul-Quds, Planet Mercy South Africa and the Madina Institute, Africa Muslims Agency and Penny Appeal South Africa.