Though the situation for volunteers in the post-earthquakes time has "eased" in southern Türkiye, the needs of the affected people are changing on daily basis, volunteers working on the ground zero said.
“Difficult time has passed (and) circumstances are becoming easier for us,” Cengiz Aslan, 53, project coordinator of one of the central relief supplies centers in this southern province of Adana, told Anadolu news agency.
“But the needs of the quakes-affected people are changing every day,” he pointed out, as two weeks have passed since the country was struck by two major earthquakes on February 6 - the deadliest in 100 years.
Aslan is coordinating supplies from across Türkiye for the 11 southern provinces affected by the disaster.
Aslan said his organisation, the Istanbul-based Insan Vakfi or Human Association, has mobilised services of around 3,500 volunteers.
“The volunteers traveled across the quakes-hit provinces, by foot, motorcycles, and around 45 off-road vehicles to reach the people,” Aslan said.
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Wide scale of the devastation
Aslan said the initial period of a tough time for volunteers seems to have passed.
“There was a huge rush (of request for help) … we could not sleep, as we continuously kept receiving a lot of phone calls … there was the hurry in every situation,” the humanitarian activist explained.
“We even could not reach (some) areas because of heavy snow and broken roads.”
After 14 days, Aslan said: “Things have eased.”
“But the needs of affected people keep changing,” he said.
“First, there was the requirement of bread and water; then burial garment or shroud,” he said, adding people in the affected areas also needed undergarments.
Pointing out the scale of devastation, he said: “Some neighbourhoods will be completely scrubbed off the maps as there are no (usable) remnants left.”
He said the association has set up a mobile kitchen for soup and tea in what was once a lively central place in Antakya.
Insaf Vakfi is currently operating 20 kitchens that serve around 82,000 people daily. Besides, it runs two mobile bakehouses which have the capacity to produce around 40,000 pieces daily.
“All these kitchens also serve as logistic centres where people can find dresses, hygiene stuff, water, and food,” said Aslan, adding the association has put to use some 340 cars for volunteers.
He said the people now need tents, blankets, electricity generators, old-style stoves, and coal as winter has compounded the problem for the affected people.
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Hundreds of NGOs involved
Besides government, hundreds of civil society organisations are working on the ground to help people in southern provinces stand up to the challenge posed by the earthquakes.
Aslan dispatched at least three to five trucks of various capacities to quakes-hit provinces on daily basis through a distribution centre in Adana. In all, at lease 570 trucks full of relief items have been dispatched by his organisation in the past two weeks.
He added some relief is supplied “directly from other non-hit provinces so as to save time.”
There are three more such logistic centers across southern Türkiye.
Insaf Vakfi volunteers are conducted search and rescue operations and were successful in rescuing trapped people.
Aslan said the association also established 30 mobile toilets for displaced residents.
At least 40,642 people were killed by two strong earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye on February 6, the latest official data showed.
In neighbouring Syria, more than 5,800 have been killed bringing the death toll in both countries to more than 46,000.
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