‘All aid accepted within system, coordination’
Fevzi Kızılkoyun - ANKARA
Türkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) accept all kinds of aid collected after the two major earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş and they are making efforts to deliver the aid to earthquake victims within a system, stated Yunus Sezer, the head of AFAD.
Stating that they accepted all international and national aid from the first day, Sezer noted that they focus on a work based on coordination as individual efforts to deliver aid to the region or reach one of the provinces make the process more difficult.
Providing information about the efforts in the earthquake zone, Sezer said that they encountered two major problems that disrupted the work at some points after the earthquakes.
“First, there are quite unfavorable winter conditions. Winter conditions prevented both land and air transportation. Helicopters and airplanes could not take off. In land transportation, there were problems on many roads and bridges due to the impact of the earthquakes,” Sezer explained.
The second problem is that the earthquake caused serious destruction in a large area, he said.
“When the disaster areas are limited to one or two cities, the teams in the region coordinated and provided immediate intervention with all their capacities,” Sezer noted.
If a disaster occurs in a province, it is predetermined from which province the teams will participate in the works, Sezer noted, adding that in general, teams from five surroundings provinces intervene in a disaster in one province.
“In today’s situation, as the quakes severely affected 10 provinces, the teams that needed to intervene already became earthquake victims themselves.”
AFAD established a “tent city” in a football stadium in Kahramanmaraş, the epicenter of the earthquakes.
In the first stage, 92,738 living tents were sent to the disaster area, and 70,000 of them were prepared for use.
In addition, 300,000 blankets and 123,395 beds were transported to the region. In other regions, efforts are underway to settle earthquake victims in tents.
