China makes headway in Turkiye rescue work

Chinese rescuers are still racing against the clock to rescue survivors from the wreckage of buildings devastated after a massive earthquake in Turkiye, despite the narrowing window of possibility to find survivors.

Aside from an 82-member Chinese official team, 15 civilian rescue teams with 288 rescuers have joined efforts in the disaster-hit nation, according to China's Ministry of Emergency Management.

A magnitude-7.8 temblor struck Turkiye and Syria at 4:17 am local time on Monday, and was followed by hundreds of aftershocks, many of them powerful. The death toll from the jolts topped 22, 000 by Friday.

On Friday, following instructions from the local emergency management authority, members of the Zhejiang Rescue Team of Ramunion headed from Iskenderun, a port city in southern Hatay province where they saved a family of five on Thursday from a heavily damaged building, to Antakya, also in the province.

The team first surveyed the conditions on arrival in the city early on Friday, said He Jun, head of the rescue team.

They soon were told that two people were buried beneath the rubble of one building. On hearing that, the team started to use their devices to detect signs of life, he said.

According to the team, to date, it has helped pull eight people from the building's debris, with seven of them surviving the ordeal, after arriving on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Chinese official rescue team helped local rescuers free three women, one of whom is pregnant, from the wreckage in Antakya, after working for 30 hours straight.

The third woman the team helped save was pulled out from under a flattened seven-story building at 8 pm local time, 80 hours after the magnitude-7.8 earthquake happened.

The first 72 hours after such a disaster are crucial for rescue operations — often referred to as a "Golden Window" for finding survivors.

The three women survived after the Golden Window passed because they had strong resilience and endurance and there was enough physical space around them, said Zhao Yang, deputy head of the Chinese official rescue team.

He also highlighted the shouting of rescuers as a factor that encouraged them to stay strong.

Cui Yazhou from the Amity Foundation — an NGO based in Jiangsu province — arrived in Turkiye early on Thursday with another team member. He reached Malatya, a large city in the Eastern Anatolia region, via a flight chartered by the Turkish government.

One of the major tasks for the duo is to learn about local people's needs and then make efforts to respond. Cui found in his field investigation in Malatya that there remain great shortages of daily necessities.

"The devastation is quite heavy. Many buildings crumbled completely," he said, adding that many buildings, though still standing, are leaning precariously or have cracked foundations.

In one location, he found a coffee shop overwhelmed with almost 200 people. "Most people can only lean on tables to rest," he said, adding that many more tents and heating units are needed.

Cui said he saw shoes, clothing and other necessities distributed to people in need. But there remain serious shortages, considering that it will still take a long time to resettle people who lost their homes, and they will have long-term needs for necessities.

Chinese civil society has been responding actively to an appeal from the embassy of Syria in China to offer donations to help people in difficulty in the Middle Eastern country.

The Syrian government extends its sincere gratitude and appreciation to all countries, organizations and individuals that offer support to the Syrian people when they are in difficulties, an online statement on the website said in Chinese, which includes a bank account to accept donations.

Many netizens have reposted their bank account on Sina Weibo. Some of them also include screenshots that show they have donated.

"I have donated. It's my small contribution. I hope the Syrian people are safe and sound," one netizen said.

"I donated 200 yuan ($29)," said another netizen. "I hope they can conquer difficulties from the earthquake and rebuild their homes as soon as possible."