Health authorities working in Turkey announced Wednesday that the death toll from Monday's 7.8-magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks has soared past 11,000 dead - but more casualties are expected given rescue teams still haven't accessed possibly hundreds or thousands more believed buried under the rubble.
Additionally, vast swathes of deeply impacted northern Syria still have yet to receive any emergency aid. "Where are the tents, where are food trucks?" one 64-year old woman identified as Melek in Antakya said. She said she'd yet to see any rescue teams in her part of southern Turkey, near Syria. "We survived the earthquake, but we will die here due to hunger or cold here."
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed that no one will "be left in the streets" during a Wednesday visit a "tent city" in Kahramanmaras. He admitted relief efforts have been slow, but still defended his administration's response.
"The death toll from the huge earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria has risen to nearly 11,500, as rescuers continued to pull survivors from the freezing rubble and the Turkish president rejected growing criticism of the authorities’ response," The Guardian wrote of his visit to the disaster zone.