Wilfried Devillers (in Antioch) 07:12, February 16, 2023

More than a week after the violent earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, there is almost no chance of finding survivors.

In Antioch, only a few rescue teams are still on site and the city is emptying of its inhabitants.

All have lost hope of finding the living in the rubble.

REPORTING

Ten days after the earthquake, Antioch is empty of its inhabitants.

The city in southern Turkey is one of the hardest hit and since Wednesday, even foreign rescuers have been giving up one after another as the hope of finding survivors has become slim.

There are only a few teams left on site, like Angel and his companions, who came from Portugal.

In this immense field of ruins that is the city center, they have once again just taken out lifeless bodies from the rubble.

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Deliver the remains to the families

In the last few hours, it is the dead that Angel and his team are looking for.

"Initially, our mission was to find survivors anyway. Then we changed our mindset, we realized that it was more and more difficult to find living people, so now we try to give bodies to people, to families. You just have to be realistic. Every hour that passes is an hour too long", he confides.

Rescuers leave Antioch on Thursday after a week of operation.

Adnan no longer has any hope of finding his relatives alive, but he is still waiting for their remains.

"It's the eleventh day and they still haven't found them. They haven't been able to get all the bodies out. In this building there are at least eleven people under the rubble. These ruins are filled with our dead . The city is dead," he said.

Thousands of dead bodies have been excavated from the rubble in recent days, to the point that authorities have had new cemeteries dug this week.