Five Indonesians Remain Unreachable after Turkey Quake

He said dozens of the citizens, mostly Indonesian students, need to be evacuated to Ankara because their houses were destroyed by the quake and the health facilities in the affected areas can no longer accommodate those who are injured.

Iqbal said that Indonesian citizens live in different places across Turkey. In Gaziantep city, 40 citizens need to be evacuated to Ankara.

"These 40 people are our citizens whose houses have been destroyed," he said.

"Currently they live in mosques, in sports stadiums, and so on. We have contacted and asked them to meet at a designated place and we will pick them up from there," said Iqbal.

In addition, only 40 out of 140 Indonesians living in Kahramanmaras city will be evacuated because the other 100 Indonesians have been accommodated in a Turkish safe house.

“These 40 Indonesians [who will be evacuated] are currently staying in tents in the field, where they cannot withstand cold weather. Therefore, we decided to evacuate them.”

The quake can affect 23 million people

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that up to 23 million people could be affected by the quake in Turkey and Syria, promising long-term assistance.

"Event overview maps show that potentially 23 million people are exposed, including around five million vulnerable populations," the World Health Organization's senior emergencies officer Adelheid Marschang said on Tuesday, Feb. 7 in Geneva, according to AFP.

"Civilian infrastructure and potentially health infrastructure have been damaged across the affected region, mainly in Turkey and northwest Syria," she said.

The WHO "considers that the main unmet needs may be in Syria in the immediate and mid-term," Marschang told the WHO's executive committee in Geneva.

She spoke as rescuers in Turkey and Syria braved cold, aftershocks and collapsing buildings, as they dug for survivors buried by a string of earthquakes that killed more than 5,000 people.

"It is now a race against time," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, explaining that the UN health agency was urgently sending aid to the area.

"We're mobilizing emergency supplies and we have activated the WHO network of emergency medical teams to provide essential health care for the injured and most vulnerable."

Source: KOMPAS.TV, AFP