Race to Identify Türkiye Quake Victims

Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after they pulled him out five days after the Monday earthquake in Antakya, southern Türkiye, late Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Can Ozer)
Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after they pulled him out five days after the Monday earthquake in Antakya, southern Türkiye, late Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Can Ozer)
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Race to Identify Türkiye Quake Victims

Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after they pulled him out five days after the Monday earthquake in Antakya, southern Türkiye, late Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Can Ozer)
Rescuers carry Muhammed Alkanaas, 12, to an ambulance after they pulled him out five days after the Monday earthquake in Antakya, southern Türkiye, late Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Can Ozer)

Tuba Yolcu is desperate for news of her missing aunt and scours a sports hall where victims of a powerful earthquake that hit her hometown in Türkiye lie in body bags.

"We hear (the authorities) will no longer keep the bodies waiting after a certain period of time, they say they will take them and bury them," she said.

"God willing we will find her," Yolcu said, with worry etched on her face.

Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor struck Kahramanmaras in the country's southeast, unleashing catastrophe in the region and Syria, killing at least 28,000 people, AFP said.

Anguished families flock to sports halls, hospital morgues or cemeteries in the severely hit city -- where bodies are piling up -- in a bid to find their missing relatives.

"Every unidentified body will eventually be returned to their family," a prosecutor said, trying to soothe the families.

"Don't worry, blood samples are taken from each and every missing body," he assured.

Families -- who cannot reach their loved ones during the rescue work -- check one by one bodies either in bags or wrapped in blankets.

"We show the faces to their immediate relatives," a crime scene investigator in a hazmat suit told AFP at a large grave outside the city.

Funeral cars deliver a stream of bodies, burying them one by one.

"If the identity is unknown, we take fingerprints and tooth samples and compare them with their relatives," said the investigator, who carries a camera around his neck.

About 2,000 bodies have been identified at the cemetery, which is filled with freshly dug graves.

- 'Let's go back' -
Next to the wooden headstones at the makeshift cemetery, where some are wrapped by scarves, people mourn their relatives.

One woman sits near the grave, unable to stop crying.

Missing bodies are stored lower down, where investigators take pictures and notes.

Yusuf Sekman, from the religious affairs directorate, said the unidentified bodies are also divided according to where their collapsed building was located.

This allows relatives to "also look, based on the recovered body's address", he said.

"Their samples are taken, and noted down on body bags" to help with identification.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Friday he hoped the missing bodies would be identified and said the government was doing everything it could.

"We upload unidentified patients' photographs to a special software in order to match," Koca said.

Unfortunately for Yolcu, her aunt was not at the sports hall since an official said all the bodies have been identified.

When the quake struck, her aunt was in the city but Yolcu was in a village.

"We cannot find her body," she said, adding that she won't stop looking.

As she stepped out of the hall, she turned back to her husband and said: "Let's return to the rubble", hoping that perhaps her aunt had yet to be pulled out.



Russia Urges US, UK to Restrain Ukraine after Attacks on Bombers

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attends the BRICS Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 28, 2025. Mauro Pimentel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attends the BRICS Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 28, 2025. Mauro Pimentel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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Russia Urges US, UK to Restrain Ukraine after Attacks on Bombers

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attends the BRICS Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 28, 2025. Mauro Pimentel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov attends the BRICS Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 28, 2025. Mauro Pimentel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Moscow said on Wednesday that military options were "on the table" for its response to Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia and accused the West of being involved in them, Reuters reported.

Russia also urged the United States and Britain to restrain Kyiv after the attacks, which Ukrainian officials have lauded as showing Kyiv can still fight back after more than three years of war.

British and US officials have said they had no prior knowledge of Ukraine's attacks on Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at military bases over the weekend.

Ukraine also tried to blow up a rail and road link with Crimea on Tuesday, and Russia says Kyiv blew up a highway bridge over a passenger train late on Saturday.

US President Donald Trump's Ukraine envoy said the risk of escalation from the war "going way up" after the attacks on the nuclear-capable bombers. A week earlier, Trump rebuked Russian President Vladimir Putin over a fierce aerial attack on Ukraine.

"We urge London and Washington to react in such a way as to stop further escalation," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees relations with the US and arms control, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

"All options are on the table," Ryabkov said, when asked what Russia's response to Ukraine's attacks would be. "This is a question for our military."

Russia and the US together hold about 88% of all nuclear weapons.

Asked whether Russia thought the West was involved in the recent attacks, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the West supplied weapons, gave target coordinates, refused to condemn such attacks and actively incited them.

"These are several areas that prove the fact of the involvement, both direct and indirect, and the guilt of the West for the terrorist attacks that are taking place against civilians and civilian infrastructure facilities by the Kyiv regime," Zakharova said.

Kyiv has not commented on the bridge attacks. Each side has accused the other of carrying out acts of terrorism during the conflict and each blames the other for a lack of progress at peace talks.

Trump was not informed in advance of Ukraine's drone attacks on Russia, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. A British government official said the government was not informed ahead of time.