In order to provide assistance to Turkey following the devastating earthquake, the Christian humanitarian organization, Samaritan’s Purse, run by businessman Franklin Graham, is planning to send an emergency field hospital of 52 beds to Turkey’s Antakya. The organization has also announced that they will provide over 100 technical and medical staff to the regions that are profoundly impacted by the earthquake. As of February 9, the official figure of those who have died due to the earthquake has reached over 20,000. The earthquakes of 7.8 and 7.5 magnitudes occurred within a period of 10 hours. The field hospital will contain a pharmacy and emergency operating rooms.
Religion News Service reports:
(RNS) — In the wake of what may be Turkey’s deadliest earthquake, Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian humanitarian relief organization, announced it would send a 52-bed emergency field hospital to the city of Antakya, historically known as Antioch.
The organization, run by founder and president the Rev. Franklin Graham, said it will also send more than 100 medical and technical staff to the ravaged region, a spokesperson said. Some have already departed.
Official counts Thursday (Feb. 9) topped 20,000 dead in the earthquakes that devastated southern Turkey and Syria on Monday. The twin temblors of massive 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude came within 10 hours of each other.
The field hospital will include two emergency operating rooms and a pharmacy. A chartered 747 aircraft was expected to take off from Atlanta to Turkey Thursday evening carrying roughly 90 metric tons of cargo, including hygiene items, solar lights and tarps, a spokesperson said.
“It is cold there and survivors are in shock — they need our help,” Graham said in a statement.
As Antioch, one of the Roman Empire’s largest cities, Antakya was an influential center of early Christianity. The Crusaders later seized it and it has been reconquered numerous times. It had a population of nearly 400,000.
The war in Ukraine has been drawing much of Samaritan’s Purse’s relief efforts over the past year, but in any given year, the organization aids people in 110–120 countries.
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