On the 6th of February, one of the most devastating earthquakes in decades,with 7.8 magnitude, hit Turkey. Over 40,000 people have died and more than 7 million children have been affected. After the huge aftershock that devastated both Syria and Turkey last week, the UN voiced terror that "thousands more" have died.“UNICEF fears many thousands of children have been killed,”James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF warned us, “even without verified numbers, it is tragically clear that numbers will continue to grow.” As the terror of the earthquake continues, the worse the results have been. Thousands of parents have lost their child and thousands of children have become orphans. This includes a 10 day old baby, named Yagiz born not too long before.Footage showed the child being taken out cautiously and carefully. Another example of this is baby Anya who was dragged out of the rubble still connected to the umbilical cord of her dead mother.

After 48 hours, it became unlikely that there would be any other survivors as the snow had begun to kick in. Rural areas were given little to no help from the government as there simply wasn't enough supplies and crew to go around. In the hours following the disaster, there were no military forces sent to affected areas, leaving people to help themselves. AlBaraa Haddad, a 27-year-old Syrian cinematographer in one of the worse affected Turkish city of Antakya, called the government’s response “shocking,” saying that there were little to no professional rescue teams or equipment from the government in the first two and a half days. “You could hear people who were still alive under the rubble, trying to scream and say they were alive, but there was absolutely no one helping at that moment,” Haddad quotes.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recognised his government’s shortcomings in the aftermath of the earthquake, telling us that it was not “possible to be prepared for such a disaster.” The government originally had problems at airports and roads, but now says that things are “under control,". Typically they would've been able to send help quicker but this earthquake was one of the largest since Japan’s Fukushima in 2011.

In the aftermath to the situation, ten government proceeded to ban twitter for a total of 12 hours from Wednesday afternoon to the early hours of Thursday morning. This was due to the amount of survivors lashing out towards the government for their lack of response. Because of this, the government arrested at least 5 people and put another 18 in custody for "provacative posts" relating to the earthquakes prior. 

In October ,Turkey passed a law to work to “criminalize the spread of misinformation.” However a Brookings report reveals the laws true intentions behind this law is to moderate social media platforms. Citizens can receive up to five years in jail for posting "fake news" that “disrupts Turkey’s domestic and external security,”. Naturally, many wonder why the government is prioritizing arrests over saving the citizens.

"Arrests of people in Turkey for criticizing the government over earthquake response have already started, but I don't think they can stop people from seeing what's in front of them.". Nate Shenkkan tweets.

Twitter has been an absolute lifeline in the aftermath of the earthquakes, both for rescuers to seek assistance and coordinate the provision of rescue equipment, and by those seeking missing loved ones,” Alp Toker, the director of the internet-monitoring group Netblocks, told the Washington Post. “There is no obvious replacement to fill the gap.”

Another issue that has been raised is the structure of buildings. Many would believe that Turkey would have put more effort into the buildings structure, having been two tectonic plates. This means that they have been dealing with earthquakes for years now. 

In terms of regulations, Turkey has the most state-of-the-art code in [the building] design process,” said Dr. H. Kit Miyamoto, a structural engineer at ​​Miyamoto International. “It’s the application where we have big problems. Both for the building capacity and regulation consistency.”

Miyamoto says that because construction is a substantial industry in Turkey, the government often turns a blind eye to regulation. And economic differences between Eastern Turkey and Western Turkey means infrastructure standards have also vastly differed, making the impacted region even more vulnerable to earthquakes and the aftershocks. The amount of medical attention has been limited due to these earthquakes,with at least two maternity support centres supported by Doctors without Borders forced to evacuate due to the risk of collapse, with several more completely destroyed.

"It’s not safe at all. The city here is totally destroyed. Basically there’s no one building that is not affected by this,” Haddad said. “Even if a building stayed standing, it is still not safe to live in.”