World

Powerful Quake Rocks Turkey And Syria, Kills More Than 5,000

Published

2 years ago

2023-02-06

ADANA, Turkey: On Monday, a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook wide swaths of Turkey and neighboring Syria, killing over 5,000 people and injuring thousands more as it toppled thousands of buildings and trapped residents beneath mounds of rubble.

Authorities were worried that the number of deaths would go up as rescuers searched through twisted metal and concrete for survivors in a region already struggling with Syria’s 12-year civil war and a refugee crisis.

Residents startled awake by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside in the rain and snow to avoid falling debris while those trapped cried out for help. Throughout the day, major aftershocks shook the area, including one nearly as powerful as the initial quake. Workers were still sawing away slabs and pulling bodies after nightfall as desperate families awaited word on trapped loved ones.

“My grandson is one and a half years old. Please, please assist them. We haven’t been able to hear or communicate with them since the morning. Please, they were on the 12th floor,” Imran Bahur sobbed outside her destroyed apartment building in Adana, Turkey. Her daughter and family have yet to be found.

Tens of thousands of people who were left homeless in Turkey and Syria had to spend the night outside in the cold. People in Gaziantep, Turkey, a provincial capital about 33 kilometers (20 miles) from the epicenter, took shelter in shopping malls, stadiums, and community centers. Mosques were opened throughout the region to provide shelter.

The Quake Prompted Seven days Or National Mourning.

Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, declared seven days of national mourning.

The earthquake, centered in Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut fleeing into the streets and was felt as far away as Cairo.

The quake added to the misery in a region that has suffered greatly over the last decade. On the Syrian side, the area is split between government-held land and the country’s last opposition stronghold, which is surrounded by government forces with help from Russia. Meanwhile, Turkey is home to millions of civil war refugees.

According to the White Helmets, an opposition emergency organization, hundreds of families remained trapped in rubble in the rebel-held enclave. The area is densely populated, with approximately 4 million people displaced from other parts of the country due to the war. Many of them live in buildings that previous bombardments have already destroyed.

According to rescue workers, strained health facilities quickly filled with injured. According to the SAMS medical organization, others, including a maternity hospital, had to be emptied.

According to Orhan Tatar, a disaster management official in Turkey, over 6,400 people were rescued across ten provinces.

Earth Quakes Frequently shake Up the Area.

The area is situated on major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. In 1999, similar powerful earthquakes struck northwest Turkey, killing 18,000 people.

The US Geological Survey assigned a magnitude of 7.8 to Monday’s quake, which occurred at a depth of 18 kilometers (11 miles). A 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) away hours later.

The second jolt in the afternoon caused a multistory apartment building in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa to topple face-forward onto the street. According to a video of the scene, the structure disintegrated into rubble and created a cloud of dust as bystanders screamed.

There were reports that thousands of buildings had fallen down in a large area that went from Aleppo and Hama in Syria to Diyarbakir in Turkey quake, which is more than 330 kilometers (200 miles) to the northeast.

Authorities reported that over 5,600 buildings were destroyed in Turkey alone. Hospitals in the Turkish city of Iskenderun were damaged, and one collapsed.

Dr. Steven Godby, an expert on natural disasters at Nottingham Trent University, thinks that the rescuers may have less time to save trapped people if it is very cold. He said that working in war-torn civil areas would complicate rescue efforts even more.

Countries Around The World Are Offering Their Assistance

Hundreds of countries, the European Union, and NATO all offered help, like search-and-rescue teams, money, and medical supplies. Most of them were going to Turkey. Russia and even Israel had promised to help the Syrian government, but it was not clear if any would make it to the rebel-held pocket in the northwest, which was in ruins.

Syrian Civil Defense, which is part of the opposition, has said that the situation in the enclave is “disastrous.”

The government and Russia have been bombing the area held by the opposition in Idlib province for years. Everything the territory needs, from food to medicine, comes from neighboring Turkey.

Osama Abdel Hamid told a hospital in Idlib that most of his neighbors died. He claimed their four-story shared building collapsed as he, his wife, and three children ran for the exit. A wooden door fell on them, serving as a shield.

“God gave me a fresh start,” he said.

The bodies of several dead children, wrapped in blankets, were brought to a hospital in the small Syrian rebel-held town of Azmarin in the mountains near the Turkish border.

Four or five TV screens in Turkey showed live coverage of rescue efforts in the provinces that were hit the hardest.

Rescuers pulled two children alive from the rubble in Kahramanmaras, and one could be seen lying on a stretcher on the snowy ground. CNN Turk says that a rescue dog found a woman who was still alive and brought her to safety in Gaziantep.

Over 12.000 Injured In Ten Different Turkish Provinces

In Adana, about 20 people, some wearing emergency rescue jackets, used power saws to saw out space for survivors to climb out or be rescued from a collapsed building’s cement mountain.

“I don’t have the strength anymore,” one survivor could be heard saying from beneath the rubble of another building in Adana earlier in the day as rescue workers tried to reach him, according to a resident, Muhammet Fatih Yavuz, a journalism student.

Hundreds of rescue workers and civilians formed lines across a mountain of wreckage in Diyarbakir. They passed down pieces of broken concrete, household items, and other debris as they looked for people who were trapped under the wreckage.

According to Turkish authorities, at least 1,762 people were killed, and over 12,000 were injured in ten Turkish provinces. According to the Health Ministry, the death toll in government-held areas of Syria has risen to 593, with 1,400 injured. At least 450 people have died and hundreds have been hurt, according to groups that work in the rebel-held northwest of the country.

Huseyin Yayman, a legislator from Turkey’s Hatay province, said several family members were trapped beneath the rubble of their collapsed homes.

“There are so many other people trapped,” he told Haber Turk television over the phone. “So many buildings have been damaged. There are people on the streets. It’s winter; it’s raining.”

SOURCE – (AP)

World

Putin Expands Military After West Approves Long Range Missile Strikes

Published

2 days ago

2024-09-17

Geoff Thomas

Putin increases army size for third time since 2022

Putin has expanded the army's ranks since sending his military into Ukraine in February 2022 - Reuters Image

President Vladimir Putin expanded the regular size of the Russian army by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active troops on Monday, citing NATO claims that Ukraine can use its long-range missiles to strike deep within Russia.

President Putin ordered that the overall number of the armed forces be boosted to 2.38 million individuals, with 1.5 million active military members.

According to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a renowned US military think tank, such an increase in military personnel would propel Russia over the United States and India in terms of active combat soldiers.

The move, the third time Putin has increased the army’s size since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, comes as Russian soldiers press forward in eastern Ukraine on parts of a massive 1,000-kilometer (627-mile) frontline and attempt to expel Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk area.

The action comes after outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he welcomed negotiations on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to strike within Russian territory, but that any decision on the matter would be made by individual countries.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to speak in Washington, D.C. – Reuters Image

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been lobbying with friends for months to allow Ukraine to launch Western missiles, including long-range US ATACMS and British Storm Shadows, deep into Russia, limiting Moscow’s ability to conduct attacks.

Last week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Joe Biden discussed whether to authorise Kyiv to employ the long-range missiles against Russian targets in Washington. There was no announcement about the decision.

According to reports, Starmer supports allowing Ukraine to employ long-range missiles, whilst Biden is concerned that allowing such strikes could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.

However, some US officials are doubtful that enabling the use of such missiles would significantly improve Kyiv’s defence against Russian invaders.

Trudeau has stressed that Ukraine should be allowed to launch strikes on targets deep into Russia – Getty Images

Analysts believe that if the West allows Ukraine to use its long-range missiles to hit Russia, Putin may retaliate by striking British military assets near Russia or, in the worst-case scenario, conducting a nuclear test to demonstrate intent.

Ulrich Kuehn, an armaments specialist at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, said he did not rule out Putin sending a nuclear message, such as testing a nuclear bomb in an attempt to intimidate the West.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that Ukraine should be permitted to strike within Russian territory, as his American and British counterparts met in Washington to consider lifting restrictions on long-range weapons provided to Kyiv.

Putin warned that permitting Ukraine to employ long-range weaponry provided by NATO would mean that NATO countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and European countries, were at war with Russia.

Many Canadians were upset by Trudeau’s statements, feeling that he and NATO were driving Canada closer to nuclear war with Russia.

Putin Says US Long-Range Missiles Hitting Russia an Act of War

Putin Says US Long-Range Missiles Hitting Russia an Act of War

World

Germany Begins Conducting Checks At All Its Land Borders

Published

3 days ago

2024-09-16

Kiara Grace

Köhl, Germany — Germany began random checks at its crossings with five Western European countries on Monday to combat irregular migration, adding to a system of mobile border controls that is already in place at four other frontiers.

The border checks with France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Denmark began before sunrise Monday and are expected to last six months. Germany has already conducted border inspections with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Switzerland since last year.

Germany Begins Conducting Checks At All Its Land Borders

Germany, a member of the 27-member European Union, stated last week that it would expand border inspections to all nine of its land borders this week in an effort to combat irregular migration and crime in the wake of recent extremist attacks. Three people were killed in a knife assault in Solingen last month, which was blamed on a Syrian asylum seeker. The suspect claimed to be inspired by the Islamic State. In June, a knife attack linked to an Afghan immigrant killed a police officer and injured four other persons.

Border controls are putting European unity to the test, as some perceive them as a departure from the spirit of the EU’s Schengen free travel and commerce agreement. One of the most valued benefits of the EU is the ability for Europeans to freely travel across borders for jobs and pleasure.

Germany, the EU’s largest country, is positioned in the heart of Europe and shares borders with more countries than any other EU member. Some trade unions have expressed worry that the curbs may harm trade.

However, a return to a previous system with closed borders and mandated border inspections for all crossings seems unlikely.

Nonetheless, German police believe the expanded checks represent a significant challenge to them.

Andreas Rosskopf, the leader of Germany’s Federal Police Union, stated that everybody crossing the border into Germany should now expect to be inspected. However, he noted that due to the length of the country’s boundaries, authorities will not be able to stop and check every car.

He pointed out that Germany has 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) on its western border, in addition to the 2,400 kilometers (1,490 miles) along its eastern and southern borders, where inspections are already in place.

He stated in an interview with RBB24 Info radio that “given the length of the border, permanent and intensive checks are not possible.” According to him, “it remains to be seen how successful it will be in curbing migration and people smuggling.”

Germany Begins Conducting Checks At All Its Land Borders

According to the EU, member states may temporarily restore controls at the EU’s so-called internal borders in the event of a major threat to internal security. However, it also states that border controls should be used as a last resort in extraordinary circumstances and must be time-restricted.

Such limitations are frequently imposed at large sporting events, such as the recent Olympic Games in Paris and the European Football Championship.

The unpopular coalition administration of Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tightened border controls to crack down on irregular immigration after the far right performed well in two recent state elections in eastern Germany. Another is coming next Sunday in Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin.

SOURCE | AP

World

A River Otter Attacks A Child At A Seattle-Area Marina

Published

5 days ago

2024-09-15

Kiara Grace

Bremerton, Washington – A river otter attacked a boy at a Seattle marina, dragging him from a dock and into the water before his mother rescued him, wildlife officials said.

The toddler was pulled underneath and resurfaced briefly during the encounter Thursday at 9:30 a.m. near the Bremerton Marina in Kitsap County, according to a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife press release.

A River Otter Attacks A Child At A Seattle-Area Marina

The otter continued to attack and scratch as the mother dragged the child from the water. Wildlife officials say the animal chased them as they exited the dock. The child was treated in a hospital.

“We are grateful the victim only sustained minor injuries, due to the mother’s quick actions and the child’s resiliency,” Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Ken Balazs said. “We would also like to thank the Port of Bremerton for their quick coordination and communication to their marina tenants.”

Officers captured the otter and transported it to a disease diagnostic facility for testing, including rabies, according to the announcement. On Saturday, the government announced that illness testing results could be available as early as next Tuesday.

A River Otter Attacks A Child At A Seattle-Area Marina

River otters are prevalent in Washington and can be found in both fresh and saltwater settings, officials added. They noted that encounters with people are rare, with only six occurring in the last decade. River otters can be territorial and, “like any wildlife, are inherently unpredictable,” experts stated.

SOURCE | AP