Turkey

World News

Turkey and Syria quakes prompt fresh worries about Istanbul's building safety

5:02am February 20, 2023

by Peter Kenyon

As Turkey's leaders promise a swift start to reconstruction efforts in the earthquake zone, attention is also turning to Istanbul — and whether Turkey's largest city is ready for a major quake.

Ali Kafadenk (left) and his brother, Abdullah, look at the rubble of Ali's apartment in Islahiye, Turkey. Ali and his wife MerveÂ survived the earthquake Feb 6.

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One couple's bedroom caved in during the earthquake. Here's how it saved their lives

6:00am February 19, 2023

In the catastrophic earthquake in Turkey and Syria, several survivors stayed alive by chance when their collapsed walls provided protection.

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Trucks in an aid convoy cross from Turkey into rebel-held northern Syria through the Bab al-Salama crossing on Feb. 14, after it reopened for U.N. relief.

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Aid groups help Turkey-Syria quake survivors amid global crises and donor fatigue

5:03am February 18, 2023

by Aya Batrawy

Appeals for aid to Syria were falling short even before this month. Aid groups are trying to marshal more aid pledges while attention is still on the quakes, but the road to recovery will be long.

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Residents remove their belongings from their destroyed house in Samandag, in southern Turkey, on Thursday. The number of people killed in the Feb. 6 earthquakes that devastated parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria continues to rise.

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11 days after the quake, a few more survivors are pulled from the rubble in Turkey

4:25pm February 17, 2023

by The Associated Press

Even as the death toll in Turkey and Syria has risen to more than 43,000, search teams in southern Turkey have rescued a few people who were trapped in the debris, including a 12-year-old boy.

Yasin Pinarbasi walks into a building he inspected that suffered some earthquake damage, west of Antakya, Turkey.

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Is it safe to go home? With hard hats and phone apps, Turkey's engineers seek answers

3:08pm February 17, 2023

NPR follows one of the hundreds of building inspectors in Turkey's earthquake zone to learn about the massive challenge of figuring how who can return to their homes.

Members of a search and rescue operation work Sunday on an area that collapsed during the earthquake in Antakya, in southeastern Turkey. Disaster recovery experts say ordinary people are crucial to saving lives.

The earthquake in Turkey and Syria offers lessons and reminders for disaster response

6:33am February 16, 2023

by Jaclyn Diaz

Even as rescuers rush to arrive, it's often locals who can best offer immediate help, experts say. And they say governments in devastated areas often fail to realize the scope and respond immediately.

A wooden plank marks a grave in a cemetery in Pazarcik, Turkey.

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Turkey buries its earthquake dead in small cemeteries and mass graves

9:28am February 15, 2023

by Jason Beaubien

With so many killed suddenly in the quake, Turkey faces the challenge of burying tens of thousands of people. Multiple funerals are happening at once and the process of burying the dead is constant.

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Melike Bayar, 34, cries as she stands outside the building where her relatives died.

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After Turkey's quake, one family mourns its losses — and braces for more

5:03am February 14, 2023

As volunteers continue digging through the rubble of a collapsed apartment building, the siblings of a woman found dead with her four children are now awaiting news of their mother and another sister.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits the city center destroyed by last the Feb. 6 earthquake in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, on Feb. 8.

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Videos show Turkey's Erdogan boasted letting builders avoid earthquake codes

2:10pm February 13, 2023

by Peter Kenyon

Videos have surfaced in Turkish media of the president in 2019 praising a policy that let builders off the hook for skirting safety codes that could have made buildings more quake resistant.

Women sit in front of the rubble of an area destroyed during the earthquake in Antakya, southeastern Turkey, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023.

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Rescuers keep digging for survivors a week after the Turkey-Syria earthquake

10:24am February 13, 2023

by Peter Kenyon

People buried under rubble in southern Turkey continue to defy the odds, surviving freezing weather and a week without water. A 40-year-old woman was pulled alive in Gaziantep province early Monday.