0:00

Start with the aftermath of the devastating

0:02

earthquake and aftershocks that have rocked

0:05

Turkey and

0:05

Syria. The death toll from the quake disaster

0:08

has reached more than seven thousand seven

0:10

hundred people tonight, and it's feared

0:12

many more victims have yet to be found.

0:15

Search teams are working with ever growing

0:17

urgency cross a huge swath

0:19

of southern Turkey and Eastern

0:21

Syria. Jane Ferguson is on

0:23

the ground in Turkey and has our report.

0:27

A moment of light surrounded by

0:30

darkness. Working

0:32

overnight in

0:33

Malatia, Turkey, rescuers a

0:35

man out from the rubble alive.

0:39

Voices shouting from under crumbled

0:42

concrete are still waiting to be

0:44

saved. An

0:48

immense rescue operation is underway

0:50

across Turkey and Syria. Thousands

0:53

of buildings were leveled. Rescuers

0:55

are now battling against time, hoping

0:58

to reach those stuck below before

1:00

it's too late. For many, that

1:02

one has already cost lives.

1:05

My sister has four children. She

1:07

has one sister-in-law. In laws,

1:10

enough use and nieces. They're

1:15

all gone. They're all gone.

1:17

If the rescuers had arrived yesterday, they

1:19

would have been saved, but they did not come.

1:22

Others have tried in vain to search

1:25

for family and friends themselves while

1:27

they wait for rescue teams.

1:30

My uncle, his wife, and his three children

1:32

are here. We haven't been able to find them

1:34

for two days, we've heard nothing. No

1:36

news. The building collapsed after the

1:38

earthquake and then a fire started fifteen to twenty

1:40

minutes later. No firefighters

1:43

came, no excavators. We tried

1:45

to save them on our own by scooping water out with

1:47

plates.

1:48

Thousands were already displaced before

1:51

the quakes after a decade of war

1:53

in neighboring Syria. Thousands

1:55

more have now been displaced by

1:58

the disaster. Survival

2:01

in Malatia are crammed into tents

2:03

sitting on cardboard box for beds.

2:06

But the tents are filling up quickly,

2:08

and many families were left to wait

2:10

in the cold for spot. Across

2:13

the border in Northern Syria, rescue

2:16

crews in Idlib face a daunting

2:18

challenge, combing through mountains of

2:20

rubble, some with only their bare

2:22

hands. Desperately searching

2:24

for signs of life. Farther

2:28

north in her end, shouts echoed

2:30

across a crowded rescue site as a

2:32

little girl was plucked from the rubble and

2:34

carried to safety. Hospitals

2:36

and health clinics across Northern Syria

2:38

are overwhelmed. Many of those facilities

2:41

were already understaffed and ill equipped

2:43

after years of war.

2:46

Thank god my home was not impacted. But

2:49

there were ten buildings beside us that

2:51

fell all at

2:52

once, an entire neighborhood all

2:54

at once. Someone those

2:56

who did manage to escape unharmed

2:58

are now braving the cold, living

3:01

on the streets of

3:01

Aleppo. They're afraid to go

3:04

home.

3:06

You saw how a whole building just falls.

3:08

It is terrifying. It's not as

3:10

if mortars hit here or there. Here

3:13

you walk in the streets, ambulances are

3:15

everywhere, buildings are falling, people

3:17

are walking in the

3:18

streets, there are bodies. The

3:21

Syrian Red Crescent said more than a hundred

3:23

and twenty temporary shelters have now

3:25

been set up for displaced

3:26

families. This school in Aleppo

3:29

is one of them. Oh my head To

3:31

be honest, this is harder than war.

3:33

At war, there's a strike and it passes.

3:36

Here, we don't know when it ends.

3:39

We are terrified.

3:41

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm

3:43

Jane Ferguson in Turkey. WILL

3:47

FOCUS NOW ON THE SYRIAN SIDE OF

3:49

THE BORDER. IDLIB PROVINCE THE FINAL

3:51

STRONGholder REVELTYS FIGHTING, SYRIAN GOVERNMENT

3:54

FORCES was particularly hard

3:56

hit by the earthquake. Nick Shiffrin

3:58

has that story.

4:00

The earthquake devastated a region

4:02

already scarred by a brutal war.

4:04

For more than a decade, the residents of

4:06

Idlib have endured bombardment by the

4:09

Syrian military and its Russian allies

4:11

as well as one of the world's largest humanitarian

4:13

crises. The Syrian civil defense,

4:16

known as the white helmets, has spent years

4:18

trying to save victims of bombings. Now

4:20

that one of the few aid groups operating on the

4:22

ground trying to save victims of the earthquake.

4:25

Ismail al Abdullah is a volunteer.

4:28

No please see you. Now it's the disaster

4:30

area. We need help from

4:32

everyone to save our people.

4:35

And ismail al Abdul joins me now

4:37

from Sarmada in Idlib province.

4:39

Yes, ma'am. I'll update you very much. Welcome

4:41

to the news hour you and your teams have spent

4:44

the last couple days. Coming through

4:46

the debris of people's homes, of

4:48

buildings that have collapsed trying to save

4:50

people's

4:51

lives. What are the conditions right now?

4:53

The largest scale of destruction,

4:55

larger scale of the rubles

5:00

mid grade culty

5:02

that we are facing right now. The

5:04

earthquake caused massive

5:08

damage in the every city bullet.

5:10

Every village, there are many

5:12

projects collapsed completely on

5:15

the

5:15

families, entire families under

5:17

ground under therapeutics. In the

5:19

videos that you're posting and

5:21

that we have here that we're showing right now,

5:23

it seems like you and your

5:26

teams are are going hand by hand

5:28

trying to rescue people in with whatever

5:31

tools you

5:31

have. They are working around

5:34

the clock to response. We used to

5:36

respond to a bombing by the SS

5:38

forces. It's totally different.

5:40

Each side has three or

5:43

three or four buildings collapsed.

5:45

We removing that open

5:48

by our hands and by the

5:49

equipment. That we have. And

5:52

what about

5:52

you and your family personally? How

5:55

did you experience this earthquake? And what happened

5:57

to the people who live right next to you?

6:00

Was asleep beside

6:03

my children when the when

6:05

the earth started to shake boilantly

6:08

and quickly. I

6:11

responded immediately to

6:15

to hold my kids

6:17

to go out of the house

6:19

to avoid this this

6:22

horrible scenario that big ceiling

6:24

and the the collapse on us.

6:26

I heard voices screaming next

6:30

to us, close to us.

6:32

It was like It was our

6:34

neighbors, their houses collapsed on them.

6:37

And as I know

6:39

certain people died, and that collapsed.

6:41

Are you went to the site.

6:43

I I couldn't handle I couldn't

6:46

hold my ears when I saw the the

6:48

people screaming seeing

6:51

and hearing

6:54

the voices calling for hell,

6:57

you said it yourself, this is different than

6:59

the war. But so many

7:01

of the people we're talking about have been through

7:04

many, many years of this

7:06

war. How much more pain

7:08

are they suffering now because of this earthquake.

7:10

The earthquake made the suffering doubled

7:13

the suffering of the people. It

7:15

came in the time of winter and the

7:19

with the winter itself. It's

7:21

disaster. A disaster in North

7:23

Korea. It's not like in other countries.

7:26

How you're people don't have something

7:28

anything to warm their children to keep

7:30

their children warm and during their

7:32

cold and harsh winter. Beside

7:35

this, beside all this in the

7:37

first place, they were displaced.

7:40

It was displaced four times that all

7:42

the people were place and now

7:44

they're suffering. Those people

7:46

who are now interested. They

7:48

don't have a place to go

7:51

they don't have the

7:52

houses. The dead houses collapsed.

7:55

We're talking here about thousands of people.

7:57

They need short the Syrian government

7:59

and its Russian allies have specifically

8:02

targeted hospitals for many

8:03

years. Are there medical facilities?

8:06

Is there medical care for the people who need it?

8:08

The whole world knows that Russia and

8:10

the Saads made the hospital

8:12

targets, killed doctors, destroyed

8:15

the medical academy. The

8:18

health sector and already is

8:20

how exhausted and now

8:22

dealing with this catastrophe

8:25

they will not be able they don't have enough doctors.

8:28

They don't have even medical supplies. So

8:32

that's why also be calling

8:35

to help. Maybe they maybe can

8:38

open the gate for doctors. Maybe they

8:40

can open the gate for those who were

8:42

injured to go to church, what do you

8:44

most need right now? We need

8:46

heavy equipment to move

8:49

to remove the massive scale

8:52

of rubble, and

8:55

we need lie the generator's

8:58

because we don't have that electricity

9:00

to work. We

9:03

need diesel.

9:05

We need help. We need international efforts

9:08

to help us. Help

9:10

us. To everyone, to

9:12

watching and listening. Help

9:14

those people and consider

9:16

them as human beings.

9:20

That was ismail a love to love with

9:22

the white helmets. We now turn

9:24

to Turkey's ambassador to the United

9:26

States, Hassan Murat Murat Khan.

9:28

I spoke to him a short while ago, and began

9:31

by asking him what it's like to see

9:33

the stunning death toll rise as

9:35

the rescue operations continue to unfold.

9:38

I cannot imagine that it will

9:40

lead, it will go, but it

9:43

can go, it can go worse. Also,

9:45

people are in the tanks right now

9:48

Mhmm. The school buildings.

9:50

So the situation is is not very good

9:52

to say the east. As you well know,

9:55

the US has already pledged any and

9:57

all needed assistance. The European Union

9:59

has mobilized

10:00

search and rescue teams are your

10:03

country's most urgent needs being

10:05

met right now. First of all,

10:07

a few hours after the earthquake

10:09

took place, which was evening in

10:12

Washington time. State department

10:15

and White House officials approached

10:18

us and clearly stated their

10:21

sourness and at the same time

10:23

said that they are ready

10:25

to help in any way

10:28

we need. They have dispatched two

10:31

rescue teams and we

10:34

still need more rescue teams

10:36

because clearing all these rubles in

10:38

very careful manner hoping

10:42

that there are some people under

10:44

the rub rubles required lot

10:46

of manual work, human

10:48

work, So we still need

10:51

new rescue teams. So

10:53

we need a lot of winter materials,

10:56

winter clothing, which in

10:58

being -- which is being provided by

11:02

American -- American customs

11:05

-- Turkish customs living in the United

11:07

States.

11:08

President Erdogan did declare a

11:10

three month state of emergency. And

11:12

the last time Turkey was under a

11:14

state of emergency was in twenty sixteen

11:17

after the failed coup

11:18

attempt. That lasted two years back

11:20

then. Why is the state of emergency

11:22

necessary now? Now, you

11:26

know, state of emergency necessarily

11:28

because there are a lot of humanitarian

11:32

aid needed, construction needed

11:35

roads needs to

11:37

be reconstructed. There are

11:39

thousands of buildings right

11:42

now and, you know,

11:44

looting is possible under these circumstances

11:48

that are always really bad people, bad

11:50

intention that try to do something.

11:52

Everything has to be coordinated. State

11:54

of emergency will help

11:56

our rescue teams all

11:58

over the

11:59

rescue teams work more

12:01

efficiently. Mister Ambassador,

12:03

we are keeping you and the people of Turkey

12:05

in our thoughts. We thank you so much. For

12:07

joining us

12:08

tonight. That is Turkey's ambassador to

12:10

the United States, Hassan Murat Ma'jan.

12:12

Thank you. Thank you very much.