Turkey-Syria earthquake: one month on | 5 News

Danny, if you also knew that it's one month on from those devastating earthquakes that hit Turkey in Syria, the death toll now stands at over 53,000, and the effects of the disaster are visible across those affected areas in southern Turkey and in northern Syria. As you'd expect, there is a huge fundraising effort to help the millions of people who've been left homeless. Just a few weeks ago, we spoke to Tefel Hussein from Islamic Relief. He's in Turkey now, and today we invited him back on again to get an update, and we started by asking him just what the situation was like on the ground. I mean, the situation is still absolutely desperate. And I was in Gadyinte, I've been in Gadyinte for the last two days, and you don't understand the magnitude of this crisis until you've actually gone on the ground yourself. And I traveled from Gadyinte to Antakya, the historical city of Antakya, to Karaman Marash, to the actual epicenter, and I was driving for hours, and throughout my journey, all I saw was destruction.

When I went into Antakya, this was a town of 800,000 people, a bustling town. It was like a ghost town, absolutely destroyed. I mean, most buildings were flattened if they weren't, they were lopsided, damaged, and it was just, it was so, it felt like a nuclear bomb. I'd hit the town, and it was just scary. 2.5 million people have been displaced as a result of this crisis, both in Turkey and in Syria. Some, a lot of people, unfortunately, have lost their loved ones.

One of our staff on the ground has lost 32 members in his family, in his immediate family. Now, one thing that hasn't been highlighted as much is the people are absolutely traumatized. I spoke to a few people, and they were relaying some stories, one person looked at me and started to well up and said, I can't trust the land that I'm walking on or the roof that's over my head. He refused us to go inside the building. You spoke to us a few weeks ago from back here in the UK, and then, I suppose, like the rest of us, you were talking about what you felt the need might be. Having been there and seen some of the faces and some of the families and seen some of the struggle, what do you think the most immediate need is now? Right now, it's so, look, on the Tokyo side, the government has actually got a better grip of it. I mean, it's very difficult.

It's such a huge area that's been destroyed, but they're in camps. They have food. I mean, unfortunately, they're only eating one type of meal throughout the day, every day. They at least have something to charge their phones. And they have some semblance of shelter. Either it's in a tent or it's in a sports center or whatever government building they can find. And on the other side of the theory, unfortunately, the situation is a lot more desperate.

For over 10 years, the Syrians have lived a very desperate living. I mean, they've had everything, their lives have been destroyed. They've moved, many have moved several times already. And over one million were already dependent on aid. Now, what's happened as a result of this earthquake is that desperate situation has been rather exacerbated. Those camps that were already in a very difficult situation, they've now been overrun by all these tens and hundreds of thousands that have been made homeless as a result of the earthquake. And those camps are defining it very difficult to cope with the sheer numbers of people that have come in.

So there's desperate need of food, medical aid, water, unfortunately, there's been an outbreak of cholera. In some parts of Syria, our teams have reported that some have actually died from cholera. I mean, I hope that, you know, it's going to take, it doesn't take them years to overcome the situation, but I hope for the Syrians that this situation will move the international community to try and find a political solution to this problem, because it's unacceptable that these people have been in such desperate need for over 10 years, and now they have to suffer even more as a result of this humanitarian crisis. Well, Tafel, it is incredible work you're doing on the ground, just trying desperately to get help to those who really, really need it. Really appreciate your time today on 5 News. Thank you. If you'd like to help those in Turkey and Syria, you can go to Islamic Relief's website.

Yeah, lots of different ways to help at the moment.

Channel 5 News, 5 News, Channel 5, News, Latest News, Breaking News, News Today, Live News, UK News, World News, Current Affairs, ITN, Channel 4 News, ITV News, Turkey-Syria, Earthquake, Islamic Relief