Away from the cameras in the hope of capturing signs of life, mechanical diggers are now digging up more and more corpses.
In Kahramanmaraş we viewed such an excavation. Almost every time the metal arm of the excavator reached into the rubble, another body was unearthed.
Talha Yusuf, waiting for news about his wife’s sister, points to a body left close to the wreckage, wrapped in a black bag. “We don’t know who it is,” says the 18-year-old. “They got out of the wreckage and left.”
Although aid groups and rescue teams are stepping up efforts to tackle the deepening crisis in Turkey and Syriapolitics has hindered disaster relief.
On Friday, it emerged that an aid convoy had been turned back from Syria’s Kurdish-led region to earthquake-stricken areas in the government-controlled northwest the day before, denying essential support to the affected population.
Both sides exchanged blame for why the convoy failed to cross, accusing each other of trying to politicize the aid.