Turkey-Syria earthquake: Huge queues snake through snowy villages where government aid is yet to arrive and the temperature is -8C
by by It was still dark when we left.
Aware of warnings that temperatures were plummeting, we needed to get on the road.
Many of the routes heading in and out of Turkey’s quake zone have become impassable.
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Some ruptured by the tremors, others clogged with aid workers trying to get in or residents trying to get out.
Forecasts of fresh snow and ice was only going to add to the misery.
Our plan was to head east to find out what was happening in some of the smaller villages.
In Goksun, traffic snarled to a crawl.
Thick snow lined the route and the temperature read -8C (17.6F)
We passed a group of men standing by a fire as a digger scraped through rubble beside them.
Another watched, quietly crying.
He told us that the building had withstood the first 7.8 quake so people had gone there to get food and shelter.
At least six were inside when the 7.5 aftershock hit and the whole place collapsed on top of them.
At one point, a group of volunteers in orange jackets arrived to help the search but after a while a whistle was blown and they all boarded their bus and left.
One told us that help was so stretched they had to prioritise.
Here they believed the chance of finding anyone alive seemed slim, so they moved on to the next rescue.
We continued east to Afsin.
In the city, we saw several government trucks handing out supplies but in the rural villages nearby it was a different story.
In one, a huge queue snaked out of a little village hall where volunteers were handing out blankets and water.
They’d driven around four hours to bring what they could carry to these more isolated communities.
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They told us the government support was being overwhelmed by those in need in the cities.
They had no idea if and when it would arrive here so they were doing what they could to help.
One of the men getting help told us his wife had been pulled alive from the rubble.
He showed us a photo of her with debris up to her neck.
The whole side of his house had fallen away and collapsed onto their car.
But after surviving one disaster, like thousands of others they are now contending with a new threat.
Without power or heating or proper shelter, they must now survive the cold.