Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit back against "some dishonest people" for "falsely slandering" his government's earthquake response, amid rising concerns over the state's response to this week's catastrophic earthquake, which is now known to have killed over 15,000 people.
The president acknowledged widespread concern over the government's response, conceding that the state initially "had some problems" at airports and on roads but claiming that the matter was now "under control."
Two days after the earthquake struck the Turkish province of Gaziantep near the Syrian border, rescuers are frantically racing against the clock in frigid circumstances to retrieve people from the rubble.
The World Health Organization's most recent projections indicate that up to 23 million people could be affected by the crisis, raising doubts about the country's readiness.
The streets of Gaziantep are littered with enormous amounts of debris and destruction where once stood residential structures and properties. As the urgent hunt for lives continues, emergency workers have frequently requested stillness from persons in the immediate area and halted heavy machinery so rescuers can check trapped residents for signs of life.
Erdogan has declared a three-month state of emergency in ten regions as part of the official reaction. The country's disaster management agency has deployed search and rescue teams to catastrophe-stricken areas, and the health minister has declared that field hospitals have been established.
Erdogan vowed to take "every necessary step" and unite the state and nation so that "no citizen will be left unattended" as he visited numerous earthquake disaster zones on Wednesday.
"No doubt our job was not easy. The difficulty of weather conditions added to the magnitude and prevalence of the destruction caused by this earthquake, which was felt in an area of 500 kilometers in which approximately 13.5 million people live," Erdogan said. "Despite this, we mobilized all the resources of the state and the nation and directed them to the disaster area
"Of course there are shortcomings. The conditions are obvious. It is not possible to be prepared for such a disaster. We will not leave any of our citizens uncared for," he added.
Erdogan's words came as reports of entire communities in the country's northern region being obliterated by the powerful tremors raise social unrest. Twitter access was restricted in Turkey in response to the discontent.
Wednesday, the network monitoring firm NetBlocks reported that internet service provider-level traffic filtering had prevented Twitter users from accessing the social networking site. The report coincided with user allegations that Twitter was unavailable in the country.
