Emergency needs are not met in 10 predominantly Kurdish and Alevi-populated provinces in southeastern Turkey following Monday’s major earthquakes.
On the fourth day after the disaster several provinces have no mobile morgues, nor are there any funeral vehicles available to transport bodies.
Citizens are forced to move the bodies of their relatives by their own means. The bodies are taken to mass burial sites.
Journalist Timur Soykan shared a photo on Thursday that showed people trying to transport a body on a motorcycle.
The odour of bodies began to rise from the rubble on Wednesday in cities such as Adıyaman (Semsûr), Kahramanmaraş (Mereş), Malatya (Meletî) and Hatay, where the damage was highest and the official response insufficient.
As hospital morgues fill, bodies are laid on hospital corridors or on the streets. The injured are treated among body bags waiting to be identified in hospital corridors.
“Half the city has been destroyed. You can already sense the smell of corpses,” a Serbian rescuer in Kahramanmaraş, Zeljko Jankovic, told Avaz. “And it will get even worse because last night it was very cold.”
Because of the lack of mobile morgues, bodies that cannot be identified within a waiting period of 24-hours are buried, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) announced on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the official death toll only takes into account the number of identified bodies, confirmed Ali Babacan, leader of Turkey’s centre-right opposition Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) during his visit to the Antakya district of southern Hatay province.
“So I’m sorry to say that the numbers will go up, the pain will grow every day,” he added.