Turkey-Syria Earthquake Death Toll Breaches 34,000

(Photo : Photo by Mehmet Kacmaz/Getty Images)
The death toll caused by the Turkey-Syria earthquake has risen to more than 34,000 as Turkish officials made more than 100 arrests in relation to buildings destroyed in the disaster.

Hope continues to be out of reach for the victims and survivors of the horrific earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria last week, with officials reporting the death toll rising to more than 34,000 on Sunday.

On the other hand, Syrian officials confirmed that the death toll in their region is 4,574 and includes more than 3,160 people living in opposition-held parts of the country's northwestern region.

Turkey-Syria Earthquake Death Toll

The situation comes as the World Health Organization (WHO) is waiting for final approval to send deliveries to areas controlled by rebels in northwestern Syria. They are the opposition groups that are part of a long-running civil war over territory control.

The global health agency hopes that Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will be able to travel soon into the rebel-held areas of Syria that were affected by the recent tremor. He and a team of top WHO officials traveled on Saturday to Aleppo on a humanitarian aid flight carrying more than $290,000 worth of trauma emergency and surgical kits, as per CNN.

A regional emergency director with the global health agency, Rick Brennan, said in a media briefing on Sunday that there have been no "crossline deliveries" made to northwest Syria since the Monday earthquake.

He added that they had already scheduled one such delivery to be made in the next couple of days but noted that they are still negotiating for it to be officially approved. Brennan said that before the tremor, the WHO was already planning a significant expansion of its crossline work.

The official said that the global health agency had already received approval from the Syrian government in Damascus but is now waiting for approval from entities on the other side.

Rescue efforts continue to search for survivors who may have been trapped under the rubble of buildings that collapsed from the earthquake's strength. According to the Washington Post, men and women could be seen watching rescuers, shouting advice as teams continued to drill through unexcavated rooms.

The Devastation of the Tremors

In one instance, residents told rescuers of the location of a person's bedroom, but it took the teams several hours to reach him. They cut away rebar only to find the individual dead, then placed him in a body bag.

Many rescue teams switched to recovery missions in several areas of affected regions in Turkey. An untold number of people are still waiting to be found or rescued under the rubble. On the other hand, the lack of excavators in Syria has left residents digging desperately for their loved ones.

Turkish officials have also issued 113 arrest warrants concerning the construction of buildings that collapsed following the tremors on Monday. Police said they have already taken 12 people into custody, including building contractors.

For years, experts have warned that many new buildings in Turkey were unsafe because of endemic corruption and government policies. The latter has allowed so-called amnesties for contractors who bypassed building regulations to encourage a construction boom, said BBC.