The Turkish Aid Agency (AFAD) and rescuers from the National Medical Relief Team (UMKE) search the rubble of a building in Islahiye near Gaziantep on February 13, 2023. ZEIN AL RIFAI / AFP

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday 14 February that it was the “worst natural disaster in Europe in a century”. “We are still trying to measure the extent,” emphasized the head of the European branch, Hans Kluge, during a press conference.

The death toll is now over 35,000. Amid rubble and debris, hundreds of thousands of homeless people in Turkey and Syria still face hunger and cold, more than a week after the powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the two countries.

The death toll could double, says UN

The number, still preliminary, continues to grow and could even double, according to the United Nations (UN): It totaled 35,331 dead as of Monday night – 31,643 dead in southern Turkey, according to Turkey’s public disaster management agency AFAD, while authorities have counted 3,688 dead in Syria. “72,663 people may have died and 193,399 people may have been injured,” according to a report by the Turkonfed employers’ association published by Turkish media on Monday.

Rays of hope, well beyond the crucial seventy-two hour period following the disaster, new survivors were being recovered from the rubble. According to the press, seven people were saved alive in Turkey during the night from Sunday to Monday, including a 3-year-old child in Kahramanmaras and a 60-year-old woman in Besni. Another, 40-year-old, was also rescued after 170 hours in Gaziantep.

UN calls for donations

The UN Secretary-General on Tuesday launched an emergency appeal for nearly $400 million in donations to help those affected by the Syrian earthquake for three months.

“Today I announce that the UN is launching a $397 million humanitarian appeal for people affected by the earthquake that devastated Syria. This will cover a period of three months,” Antonio Guterres told reporters, adding that a similar appeal for Turkey is in the pipeline.

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Hundreds of thousands of survivors are to be accommodated in Turkey

A woman stands in the rubble hoping her loved ones will be found by rescuers February 13, 2023 in Hatay, southern Turkey. BULENT KILIC / AFP

With the chances of finding survivors close to zero, the focus now is to help the hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed by the earthquake. According to the Turkish government, around 1.2 million people were accommodated in student dormitories, more than 206,000 tents were erected and 400,000 victims were evacuated from the devastated areas.

In Antakya, the Antioch of ancient Greece, after the first three or four days of abandonment, help is now being organized. To the great relief of the survivors, who were deprived of them for several days, basic toilets were installed and telephone service was restored in part of the city.

After several incidents over the weekend, a heavy police and military presence was visible to deter looting. However, many residents justified the raids in supermarkets in the first few days with the absolute emergency in which many were without water, without electricity, without money or open shops.

In addition to extreme material deprivation, there is also psychological stress, which hits the youngest hardest. Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay said 574 children rescued from the collapsed buildings were found unaccompanied.

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In total, more than 7 million children have been affected by this quake, UNICEF reported Tuesday, which fears several thousand of them have been killed. “In Turkey, a total of 4.6 million children lived in the ten provinces affected by the two earthquakes. In Syria, 2.5 million children are affected,” said James Elder, a spokesman for the organization, during a press conference in Geneva.

Also read: Article reserved for our subscribers Earthquake in Turkey: A first wave of arrests is aimed at real estate developers

In Syria, two new border crossings with Turkey

Saudi Arabian humanitarian aid packages for victims of the February 6 earthquake are unloaded from an Ilyushin Il-76TD transport plane at Aleppo International Airport in northern Syria, February 14, 2023. – / AFP

For the first time since the deadly earthquake, a UN delegation entered the rebel-held areas of north-west Syria via the Bab Al-Hawa border post with Turkey on Tuesday. “It’s largely a needs assessment mission,” said Kenn Crossley, director of the World Food Program in Syria, in Geneva.

For its part, Syria announced the opening of two new border crossings with Turkey for an initial period of three months to speed up the arrival of humanitarian aid. Before the earthquake, almost all of the aid vital to more than 4 million people living in rebel-held areas in north-west Syria was channeled from Turkey through a single border crossing, that of Bab Al-Hawa.

Calls for the opening of new border crossings between Turkey and northwestern Syria, some areas of which are controlled by the rebellion, had multiplied in recent days. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s decision, which “will allow faster aid deliveries”.

Trucks carrying enough on board to make shelters out of plastic sheeting, as well as blankets, mattresses, rope or even screws and nails, crossed the border on Monday. According to a Syrian Ministry of Transport official, Suleiman Khalil, 62 planes loaded with aid have landed in Syria so far, and more are expected in the coming hours and days.

A Saudi plane loaded with 35 tons of food landed in Aleppo on Tuesday morning, the first plane from Saudi Arabia to reach Syria in more than a decade, according to Khalil. Two more Saudi planes loaded with humanitarian aid are expected on Wednesday and Thursday, according to the same source.

The world with AFP

A new report on the remains of Pablo Neruda hypothesizes that the great Chilean poet, who died on August 23, 1973 at the Santa María Clinic in Santiago de Chile, was poisoned twelve days after the military coup by General Augusto Pinochet. which put an end to the experience of President Salvador Allende. The analyzes carried out by a group of international researchers have revealed the presence of a highly toxic toxin, the “Clostridium botulinum”, which would have quickly led to her death.

“We now know that ‘Clostridium botulinum’ should not have been present in Neruda’s bones and that is why he was murdered by Chilean state agents in 1973,” the Nobel Prize winner’s grandson, lawyer Rodolfo Reyes, told the Chilean press, awaiting the official results of the analyzes to be announced tomorrow, Wednesday 15 February.

The botulinum bacterium was first identified in a molar of the poet in 2017 by a group of experts who put forward the poisoning hypothesis and challenged the official version, which speaks of Neruda’s death from a metastatic prostate tumor. Rodolfo Reyes therefore considers the hypothesis repeatedly repeated by the Chilean Communist Party to be plausible, according to which Neruda was killed “with an injection that poisoned him”.

“I can say it because I know the reports. I say it as a lawyer and nephew with a lot of responsibility because the judge can’t say it yet because he has to have all the information,” Reyes told Spanish newspaper El País. “We’ve been waiting for this, because the 2017 panel of experts had already found ‘Clostridium botulinum’. But it was not known whether it was endogenous or exogenous. In other words, whether it was internal or external. And now it’s proven that it was endogenous and that it was injected or placed.”

The story of the poisoning death of Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) has been recorded for at least ten years, and since then, repeated forensic investigations with judicial investigations opened and closed have failed to formulate a clear verdict on the death. Now the nephew, who never abandoned the official version, has announced the turning point.

In 2013, a group of coroners, in agreement with the Chilean judicial authorities, subjected the body of the Nobel Prize to a series of lengthy examinations to verify the reliability of the testimony of its driver and bodyguard, Manuel Araya, according to which the poet he would be by the will a few days after the coup d’état murdered by a mysterious injection by General Pinochet in the Santa Maria Clinic in Santiago. The head of Chile’s forensic medicine service, Patricio Bustos, then had Neruda’s body analyzed and concluded that the poet had died of prostate cancer, the course of which would have been accelerated by the emotional strain of the days of the coup. No toxic substance was then found in the body, except traces of drugs and painkillers taken to fight cancer, while there were many metastases in the bones.

In January 2015, the poet’s nephew obtained a supplementary examination and the reopening of the preliminary investigation with new scientific research on the biological findings taken from the corpse in the spring of 2013, in order to look for certain chemical substances or deadly heavy metals in a short time in a weakened organism. In May 2015, a Spanish team announced the discovery of abnormal proteins in Neruda’s bones that are not related to drugs, some linked to cancer and others to sudden and very rapid infection.

That investigation was also dropped, but amid lingering doubts, the Chilean government set up two scientific commissions, which authored a document in November 2015 stating that it is likely that Neruda did not “died of prostate cancer” and that ” third party intervention is clearly possible and very likely,” concluding that the patient was “given an injection or something orally administered that accelerated his prognosis in just six hours.”

In February 2016, Chilean judge Mario Carroza, who ordered the exhumation of Pablo Neruda’s body, ruled that the custody of the remains available to the court until then could not be extended and ordered their return to the family. In April 2016, Pablo Neruda’s remains were reinterred on Isla Negra on Chile’s central coast, where his house-museum is located next to the grave of his wife Matilde Urrutia. The body of the author of “I confess that I have lived” had already arrived in the garden of the poet’s last residence in 1992, having previously rested in the cemetery of Santiago de Chile.

In the fall of 2017, a pool of experts examined the remains of the Chilean poet again and the result of the new examinations was announced by Professor Aurelio Luna of the Spanish University of Murcia, who had coordinated the work of an international team of 16 doctors: “Contrary to what is stated in the official According to the certificates, it was not prostate cancer that caused Neruda’s death.” “We cannot yet rule out or confirm the natural or violent cause of Pablo Neruda’s death – explained Aurelio Luna during a conference in Santiago de Chile – but the basic conclusion is the invalidity of the death certificate”. In the months that followed, tests revealed the presence of the bacterium “Clostridium botulinum” found in one of the poet’s molars, which was later confirmed by other tests, allowing the case to be brought back to court. The results of the assessments carried out by the international experts should be published tomorrow, Wednesday 15 February, when the report will be handed over to Judge Paola Plaza. However, the information provided by the experts is not binding on the judge’s decision.

The last group of experts responsible for the expertise must determine whether the origin of the identified substance is endogenous or exogenous in nature. This third panel of experts is made up of scientists from Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Canada and Chile. Two laboratories, one in Canada and one in Denmark, conducted the tests.

Havana, February 14 (ACN) During a trip organized by the Enjoy Travel Group agency, a group of tourists with disabilities from Spain arrived in this capital for the first time, consolidating the modality of accessible tourism in the country.

Authorities of the island’s Ministry of Tourism (Mintur) stressed the importance of this tourist segment for the nation, as well as the opportunities that Cuba offers to this category of travelers, according to Excelencias magazine published today.

Diego Javier González, President of the Spanish Network for Accessible Tourism, described the pioneering trip that took place this February as an achievement for Cuba.

According to the report, Enjoy Travel Group, the new brand of Mexican operator Enjoy Cuba, is planning to expand other accessible tourism destinations in the Caribbean state in addition to Havana.

Due to the large hotel offer and resources, the Cuban capital and the Varadero Spa were among the first destinations identified by the tour operator as an accessible offer, but others are already on offer, such as Viñales, Las Terrazas, Trinidad and Cienfuegos. he assured Excellencies Silvia Herrero, representative of Enjoy Cuba.

The text refers to the fact that this Mexican operator, in collaboration with the Mintur, has been working for several years to revitalize accessible tourism in Cuba, identifying and generating tourist products for the development of this booming modality.

In December 2021, Enjoy Cuba participated in the celebration of the IV Iberoamerican Summit for Accessible Tourism in Havana, where a declaration was signed promoting a model that creates the conditions for an accessible and inclusive tourism experience for all people. , without difference.

Thousands of people remain missing in Turkey and Syria. According to diplomats, the Syrian border points are opening up. “The suffering of the people is indescribable,” reported humanitarian organization coordinator Heinz Wegerer.

The European office of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for comprehensive help for the many earthquake victims in the Turkish-Syrian border area. WHO regional director Hans Kluge described the quake as the region’s worst natural disaster in a century. The need for help is huge and growing by the hour, he said at an online news conference on Tuesday.

Around 26 million people in Turkey and Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance. “Now is the time for the international community to show the same generosity that Turkey has shown to other nations over the years,” he said on Tuesday. The country is home to the largest refugee population in the world.

More than a week after the devastating earthquakes, there is little hope of finding more survivors. “The rescue phase, in which people are pulled alive from the rubble … is coming to an end,” UN emergency aid coordinator Martin Griffiths said on Monday in Aleppo. President Bashar al-Assad wants to open two more border crossings with Turkey to improve humanitarian aid in the hard-to-reach areas hit by the earthquake in Syria.

Bab Al-Salam and Al Ra’ee are expected to stay open for three months, Griffiths told the UN Security Council on Monday, according to several diplomats. So far, the United Nations has only been able to provide aid to areas that are not controlled by the government via a border crossing (Bab al-Hawa). Northwest Syria is controlled by several rebel groups.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed Assad’s decision: “Opening these border crossings – in addition to facilitating humanitarian access, speeding up visa approvals and facilitating travel between centers – will allow more aid to arrive more quickly. ”.

The Syrian ruler expects international help to rebuild the country. Speaking to Griffiths on Monday, Assad emphasized “the importance of international efforts” to help “restore infrastructure in Syria”, according to a statement released by the Syrian presidency.

“They hope for a miracle”

“The suffering of the people is indescribable,” reported Heinz Wegerer, humanitarian aid coordinator at Hilfswerk International, on Tuesday in Vienna about the situation in the crisis area. He did not return to Austria from Turkey until Monday. “The corpse smell is getting stronger,” said the rescuer.

Austrian organization Hilfswerk International is providing emergency aid in the hard-hit province of Hatay. “What I saw there, what I experienced there, it’s difficult or impossible to put into words,” he said, concerned. The desperate situation of the population in the earthquake area is very close to him. In Iskenderun, for example, there are “four parallel streets with all the buildings left and right destroyed,” Wegerer said. There are still many people missing under the rubble, “people have been sitting in front of the destroyed buildings and resisting since last Monday, hoping for a miracle,” he said.

Quick and uncomplicated help is now urgently needed. In the early days, the local population had to provide most of the humanitarian aid. “Let’s make sure people can keep helping and have staying power,” Wegerer stressed. Up to 50 aid agency workers must ensure this in Turkey. Wegerer also reported problems with emergency aid. The state civil protection authority AFAD “is obviously overwhelmed with coordination”.

UNICEF warns of long-term consequences

Meanwhile, the UN children’s fund Unicef ​​has warned of the catastrophic situation of millions of children in urgent need of humanitarian aid. The total number of boys and girls affected is still unclear, but according to UNICEF, 4.6 million children live in the ten provinces of Turkey affected by the earthquake. More than 2.5 million children are affected in Syria.

“The children and families of Turkey and Syria are facing unimaginable hardship in the aftermath of these devastating earthquakes,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director on Tuesday. “We must do everything in our power to ensure that everyone who survived this disaster receives vital assistance, including clean water, sanitation, basic nutrition and medical care and psychosocial support for children. Not just now, but also in the long term.”

The European office of the World Health Organization (WHO) also called for comprehensive help for the many victims of the earthquake. The need is huge and growing by the hour, said WHO regional director Hans Kluge. Around 26 million people in both countries are in need of humanitarian assistance. “We are facing the worst natural disaster in the WHO region of Europe in a century,” said Kluge.

Thousands of people remain missing

The confirmed death toll stood at over 37,500 as of Tuesday morning and over 80,000 people were injured. Thousands remain missing. Helpers rescued individual living victims on Monday. But there were still small glimmers of hope: Eight days after the devastating earthquake, there were media reports of three people being rescued from the rubble. In Kahramanmaras province, helpers rescued two brothers aged 17 and 21 on Tuesday morning, state news agency Anadolu and broadcaster CNN Türk reported. They stayed, therefore, 198 hours under the rubble. In Adiyaman province, an 18-year-old boy who was also buried for 198 hours was rescued.

According to Anadolu, a 26-year-old woman was rescued alive after 201 hours under rubble in Hatay province. The information could not be independently verified.

The survivors now found must have had access to liquids – such as rainwater, snow or other sources. Usually, a person can do without water for about 72 hours, that is, three days, after which it becomes life-threatening. This deadline has already been exceeded.

Numerous buildings and parts of the infrastructure were destroyed. A report by the Turkish Business and Business Confederation, Türkonfed, estimates damage from the earthquake at around $84 billion.

Long term geological consequences

According to satellite data, severe earthquakes can also have long-term geological consequences. “There appears to have been significant subsidence in the coastal town of Iskenderun, causing flooding, while the earthquake has put many hills across the country at serious risk of landslides,” the European Space Agency said. Broadcaster NTV reported last week that buildings in the Turkish coastal city had to be evacuated because of flooded streets.

In the early morning of February 6, the first tremor of magnitude 7.7 shook the Turkish-Syrian border region, followed hours later by a second aftershock of magnitude 7.6. Since then, there have been more than 2,400 aftershocks. Ten provinces have been affected in Turkey – there is now a three-month state of emergency. More than 100,000 volunteers traveled to the earthquake zone to help. Some of them have already returned to their homeland.

(APA/dpa)