ISTANBUL - A container blaze at Türkiye's southern port of İskenderun has been brought under control, Türkiye's maritime authority said on Wednesday, following combined efforts from land, sea and air to extinguish the fire.
Operations at the port were shut down until further notice after a fire broke out due to the earthquakes that hit the region on Monday, and ships and freighters were diverted to other ports.
A source from the port said the flames had not spread to the area where flammable materials were stored, and that the nature of the fire, which has unleashed a huge cloud of black smoke over the city, was still unclear.
"We suspect it is plastic raw material or chemicals but we cannot not clearly determine it as the containers collapsed and scattered," the source said.
Meanwhile, families in southern Türkiye and Syria spent a second night in the freezing cold on Wednesday as overwhelmed rescuers raced to pull people from the rubble two days after a massive earthquake that killed more than 9,600 people.
Many in the disaster zone had slept in their vehicles or on the streets under blankets, fearful of going back into buildings shaken by the 7.8 magnitude tremor – already Türkiye's deadliest since 1999 – that hit in the early hours of Monday.
Rescuers there and in neighbouring Syria warned that the death toll would keep rising as some survivors said help had yet to arrive.
"Where are the tents, where are food trucks?" said Melek, 64, in the southern Turkish city of Antakya, adding that she had not seen any rescue teams.
"We haven't seen any food distribution here, unlike previous disasters in our country. We survived the earthquake, but we will die here due to hunger or cold here."
With the scale of the disaster becoming ever more apparent, the death toll rose above 7,100 in Türkiye.
In Syria, already devastated by 11 years of war, the confirmed toll climbed to more than 2,500 overnight, according to the Syrian government and a rescue service operating in the rebel-held north-west region.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. But residents in several damaged Turkish cities have voiced anger and despair at what they said was a slow and inadequate response by the authorities.
Erdoğan, facing a close-fought election in May, is expected to visit some of the affected areas on Wednesday.
The initial quake, followed hours later by a second one almost as powerful, struck just after 4am on Monday, giving the sleeping population little chance to react.
It toppled thousands of buildings including hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, injured tens of thousands, and left countless people homeless in Türkiye and northern Syria.
Turkish authorities say some 13.5 million people were affected in an area spanning roughly 450km from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east – broader than the distance between Boston and Philadelphia, or Amsterdam and Paris.
In Syria, it killed people as far south as Hama, some 100km from the epicentre.
Türkiye's disaster management agency said the number of injured has risen to more than 38,000 million.
Reuters