Tag Archives: LOTI

Aug 21 2023

Hawaii Governor Josh Green Says More than 1,000 Still Missing in Maui – Many Are Children


Posted originally on the CTH on August 20, 2023 | Sundance 

Everything about the Maui fire is sketchy.  It was sketchy when it happened. It is sketchy in the aftermath, and it remains sketchy in the recovery stage.  The FBI, EPA and FEMA have essentially locked down the island, and there are reports of people being evicted who did not perish and did not lose their homes.

I’m not sure if the issues are related to systemically gross incompetence, nefarious constructs, a blue state with poor systems and weak leaders, or a combination of all the above.  However, what is abundantly clear is that the people of Maui are victims of more than just a massive wildfire.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green appears on “Face the Nation” to tell Margareet Brennan that the failure of the now-resigned Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator was “utterly unsatisfactory, to the world.” “Of course, as a person, as a father, as a doctor, I wish all the sirens went off,” Green said.  The governor also stated there are more than 1,000 people still missing and many of them are children.  He blames global warming. WATCH:

[Transcript] –  MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to Hawaii’s Governor Joshua Green in Honolulu. Good morning. Thank you for getting up so early, and I’m so sorry for what is going on in your state.

GOV. JOSH GREEN: Thank you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor, can you tell us how many are still unaccounted for, and how long will it take to identify remains?

GOV. GREEN: More than 1000 are unaccounted for, about 1050. It will take several weeks, still, some of the challenges are going to be extraordinary. As you reported, 85% of the- of the land of the impact zone has been covered now by what amounts to an army of search and rescue teams and 41 dogs. So 85% of the land has been covered. Now we go into the larger buildings, which require peeling back some of the floors and structures. That last 15% could take weeks. We do have extreme concerns that because of the temperature of the fire, the remains of those who have died, in some cases, may be impossible to recover meaningfully. So, there are going to be people that are lost forever. And right now, we’re working obviously with the FBI and everyone on the ground to make sure that we do what we can to assess who’s missing.

MARGARET BRENNAN: That is hard to hear, Governor. I know a local Maui official said a large number of the dead may have actually been children who were left home that day because schools were closed, many of them alone or with their grandparents. Is that the case?

GOV. GREEN: That is possible. And that’s-that’s what we’re sharing here internally, that it’s possible that there will be many children. This is the largest catastrophe and disaster that’s ever-hit Maui, probably that’s ever-hit Hawaii outside of wartime events. So, we just thank everyone in the world for reaching out and supporting us through all of the, you know, the ways that they can. Right now, we are trying to make sure everyone is sheltered, and we begin to get all the federal resources we can to make life in some way livable for the survivors. That’s where we are at the moment.

MARGARET BRENNAN: When will the surviving children of West Maui be able to return to school? What do they need?

GOV. GREEN: In some cases, they’re returning later this week. Children can go to any school that’s in the region or where they are. We have six hotels that are basically full of families and their children that have survived. We also are doing distance learning. A lot of that was implemented during the COVID pandemic. There are just so many things to share. King Kamehameha Elementary School in Lahaina is burned to the ground. I mean, it’s totally gone. It used to host 650 children, some of those children have passed. Others will, of course, go to neighboring schools. You have to remember this is a very rural part of Hawaii. And that’s one of the challenges. So, schools are far apart. We’ve authorized other means of transportation, you know, vans and things to help families get farther distances to school.

MARGARET BRENNAN: As-as we’ve been discussing, there are now a lot of questions about all of the policies and procedures. You know, the National Weather Service had issued a Fire Watch for your state August 6, a few days before the fire hit. With the siren system, you said to CNN on Monday and again on Tuesday that you believe some of the sirens were broken. When did you learn they weren’t fully functional?

GOV. GREEN: We assess every siren across the state on the first of the month. And then we ask people to update them and fix them to their abilities. You know, I, of course, I as a person, as a father, as a doctor, I wish all the sirens went off. The challenge that you’ve heard, and it’s not to excuse or explain anything. The challenge has been that historically, those sirens are used for tsunamis. That’s when I came to Hawaii 23 years ago was told when I was living down near the shore. So, it’s usually tsunamis and hurricanes. For perspective, we’ve had six fire emergencies this August, we had six fire emergencies between 1953 and 2003. That’s how- how fast things are changing. I know that there is debate out there whether we should be talking about climate change or not. Well, let’s be real world, climate change is here we are in the midst of it with a hotter planet, and fiercer storms. And you asked the question, I’m coming back to it right now. Do I wish those sirens went off? Of course, I do. And I think that the answer that the- the emergency administrator for Maui, who has resigned, said was, of course, utterly unsatisfactory to the world. But it is the case that- that we’ve historically not used those kinds of warnings or fires.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I understand, and I know that you are conducting a review, but given that your state is experiencing a drought, and you’re in hurricane season, can you say whether other Hawaiian towns are as vulnerable as Lahaina was?

GOV. GREEN: We worry about a lot of our state, Waikoloa on the Big Island, which was experiencing a fire at the same time and required evacuations. We’re worried about them. We worry about all of our state. Some of the state, which is denser and more urban, like Waikiki, has a lot more water and a lot more firefighters, a lot more support. Oahu has three quarters of the population of the state. But we’ve had, although it’s not been reported in the press, we’ve had multiple small fires, some on Oahu, some on Big Island, of course, more on Maui, even in the days since the fire. And the firefighters, I want to thank them. They’ve been heroic in this period of time. They’ve just been constantly working, and everyone has stepped up. But yes, we’re worried, and we have done all that we can at the moment to continue to warn people that this is a season of fire and everyone, of course, doesn’t need more reminding because of what happened in Lahaina.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There has been scrutiny of the largest utility, Hawaiian Electric, because there were images, I know you know this, of power lines, possibly starting fires. Last year, that company had proposed an upgrade of the grid with Lahaina as a priority area and suggested a rate hike to do that. Do you know why that didn’t happen and if that contributed?

GOV. GREEN: I don’t know personally whether or not the- the power lines were the- the primary reason the fire occurred. That’s why I asked for a comprehensive review, I think two days into this, which is very atypical. Normally, these kinds of investigations come months or-or more later. But we have to ask that question, we have to ask the question on every level of how any one city, county, state could have done better and the private sector. This is- this is the world that we live in now. In this case, and I’ve seen footage of it from some of the survivors, I’ve seen footage of how it looked during the fire and how things were exploding and what the fierce winds looked like. They were 80 miles per hour gusting and the fire, I’m now told, was as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It just destroyed everything. It’s not to excuse anything else from any company. It’s just to explain what the world should prepare for, and I humbly asked all of the cities and states to spend that money now to prevent disasters like we are seeing here.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So just to be clear, when you’re talking about global warming, are you saying that climate change amplified the cost of human error?

GOV. GREEN: Yes, it did. There’s always going to be incredible things that people do to save lives, from the firefighters, from citizens. And there’s always going to be decisions that are made that I’m sure aren’t perfect in the moment. And- but when you have fire that move more than a mile a minute, and what happened I’m told by some of the survivors, they were at the initial fire. It was put out sometime late in the afternoon in Lahaina, and then the firefighters had to go to three other fires that had started because of the conditions. When they left the fire started up again. And then when the storm winds from Dora, which were that strong, swept it out, it just destroyed everything. So, there’s no excuses to ever be made. But there are finite- there are finite resources sometimes in the moment.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor, we’re watching, the country’s watching, good luck and thank you for your time.

GOV. GREEN: Thank you for your love and support. We appreciate it.

[end transcript]

Aug 18 2023

“One Water” Approach Led to Deaths on Maui


Armstrong Economics Blog/Climate Re-Posted Aug 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Climate change zealots are destroying our society. I mentioned how Maui suffered the repercussions of Biden’s America-Last policies after they received mere breadcrumbs compared to a much larger payment to Ukraine that same week. Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM) deputy director M. Kaleo Manuel is responsible for multiple deaths amid the Maui fires. You see, Manuel believes in a “One Water” approach where water is sacred and should be used sparingly, including in the case of a massive fire.

Manuel’s page on the Obama Foundation’s website notes: “Kaleo is the Deputy Director of the State of Hawaiʻi Commission on Water Resource Management. He believes that ancient wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge of native peoples will help save the Earth. Kaleo is passionate about elevating native and indigenous ways of knowing in all spheres of discourse and dialogue.”

Firefighters in Lahaina, Hawaii, stated that the fire hydrants were basically empty on the day the fire erupted. “Fighting fire for their lives, getting overrun, trying to have a captain they are trying to get out to a burn center, hydrants aren’t working, that’s no different from cops being in a gunfight without bullets,” Frank Lima, secretary-treasurer of the International Association of Fire Fighters, described.

Kaleo Manuel did not immediately respond to the request to refill the reservoirs. Instead, he told the firefighters on the frontlines to discuss the matter with a local farmer to see how diverting the supply would impact him. People were burning alive and Manuel thought perhaps it was not fair to use the water so recklessly. “We can share it [water], but it requires true conversations about equity,” Manuel said in a poorly aged clip.

The World Economic Forum released an article in March: “Our relationship with water is political, says this climate scientist.” The “expert” claims that human’s relationship with water changed a century ago as “the promise of the modernist world was to separate us, to emancipate us from nature.” Equity is the keyword used again here. Everyone should have equal access to water. In global elite lingo, that means that we, the people, the Great Unwashed plebians, cannot manage our water, and it must be allocated to us in rations.

There is actually a dystopian Korean movie on Netflix regarding this matter where everyone has a water allotment provided to them by the government based on their social credit score. Sadly all these dystopian films seem to foreshadow of the future. The climate zealots will cheer EQUITY and willingly give all power to the government so they can distribute the basics of what we need to survive. Lives could have been saved in Hawaii if the government had allowed the fire department access to WATER.

Aug 12 2023

The Climate Change Hoax


Armstrong Economics Blog/Climate Re-Posted Aug 12, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Aug 9 2023

The Manufactured Climate Consensus


Aug 3 2023

WEF Study–‘My Carbon’: An approach for inclusive and sustainable cities


Armstrong Economics Blog/Great Reset Re-Posted Aug 3, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

‘My Carbon’: An approach for inclusive and sustainable cities was released in September 2022, and you were part of the test group. The WEF-funded “research” states cities account for 75% of all carbon emissions. As countless governments abandoned their morality to the Great Reset, cities are on track to reduce emissions by nearly half in the coming years. They even want to limit our personal carbon allowance, assisted by digital IDs and credit scores. Most notable in this paper is that COVID was merely a ploy to test how well the masses would comply.

They found three major developments:

  1. COVID-19 was the test of social responsibility – A huge number of unimaginable restrictions for public health were adopted by billions of citizens across the world. There were numerous examples globally of maintaining social distancing, wearing masks, mass vaccinations and acceptance of contact-tracing applications for public health, which demonstrated the core of individual social responsibility.
  2. Fourth Industrial Revolution technology breakthroughs – Advances in emerging technologies like AI, blockchain and digitization can enable tracking personal carbon emissions, raise awareness and also provide individual advisories on lower carbon and ethical choices for consumption of product and services. The World Economic Forum’s Scale 360 initiative demonstrates the use of fourth industrial revolution technologies across the whole life cycle of products and services.

There have been major advances in smart home technologies, transport choices with carbon implications, the roll-out of smart meters in providing individual choices to reduce their energy-related emissions, the development of new personalized apps to account for personal emissions, and better personal choices for food and consumption-related emissions. AI can also help strengthen circular economy business models like product as a service models, demand predictions, and smart asset management by combining real time and historical data from products and users.

There is a significant number of programs and applications enabling citizens to contribute towards carbon emissions by providing them in-depth awareness on the choices of personal carbon for food, transport, home energy and lifestyle choices.

These energy efficiency apps give suggestions and statistics regarding greenhouse emissions and offer ways to reduce your personal footprint. Keeping track of energy consumption in the home and motivating people to make lifestyle changes and to contribute your share towards the betterment of the environment.

  1. Raised awareness and ownership for nature and environment – In the last few years, there is an increased awareness and public concern on climate change and specially among youth. The UNDP’s “Peoples’ Climate Vote” reflects that over 64% of people believe climate change is a global emergency. A new Pew Research Center survey in 17 advanced economies found widespread concern about the personal impact of global climate change: 80% of citizens say they are willing to change how they live and work to combat the effects of climate change. Young adults, who have been at the forefront of some of the most prominent climate change protests in recent years, are more concerned than their older counterparts about the personal impact of a warming planet in many public surveys.

The first point mentions that they implemented “a huge number of unimaginable restrictions for public health” and billions of citizens across the world blindly followed their guidance. There could have been a mass outcry or revolution, but the people stayed inside and followed instructions obediently.

The second point shows that a portion of the population is now on-board with the green agenda. People have downloaded apps to track their personal energy consumption, and going back to point one, feel a sense of personal responsibility. We saw numerous countries adopt digital IDs during COVID that restricted the movement of the people.

The third step notes that there is a raised awareness, and additional personal responsibility, for the state of the environment. At the time of the publication, a Pew Research Center poll of 17 advanced economies found that 80% of citizens wanted to change how they live and work to fight the effects of weather patterns. As Nicole Schwab stated in her leaked 2020 interview, the youth are at the forefront of this movement, creating climate change protests throughout the world.

So this all breaks down into changing global economic behavior, cognitive awareness, and social norms. We see with the ESG scores that companies are punished for refusing to comply with the green agenda. The study states there are “incentives to reduce demand and improve efficiency,” but all we have seen are punishments. High gas costs, a loss of energy independence, banning gas and coal-powered items. Cognitive awareness is simply a way of saying brainwashing. They want the masses to believe that everything they do creates a carbon footprint that will certainly ruin the entire planet and cause a mass extinction. “They” fly on private jets throughout the week to discuss how the peasants can become a net-zero-carbon society.

Societal norms, the third noted trend, have allowed the Build Back Better crowd to determine what are considered acceptable levels of emissions. The masses want to obey, so those in power are slowly changing what is normal. Coal or wood-fired ovens? Selfish and harmful to society. Personal vehicles? You’re basically a climate war criminal!

None of the policies they wish to implement are normal. Resistance is NOT FUTILE. I, for one, will never be locked down again. I will not comply to climate lockdowns. I will not abandon my ability to move freely in society. I will not allow myself to be brainwashed to accept personal responsibility for naturally occurring cyclical weather patterns. They may have taken advantage of us during COVID, but hopefully, more people are waking up and seeing the truth – rules for thee, not for me.

Jul 31 2023

Converting El Niño into Climate Change to Further the Agenda 2030


Armstrong Economics Blog/Climate Re-Posted Jul 31, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: All of a sudden, El Niño is proof of global warming, just like the wildfires in Australia and California, as if these things never happened before. The sheep believe whatever the press tells them. That’s why you cannot stop the cycle, and 2032 is now not so far away.

HW

ANSWER: El Niño and La Niña are climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean that have impacted weather worldwide for centuries. This very intense cycle will increase the risk of famine in parts of the world from 2024 to 2025. Here is a chart of the temperatures back to 1950. Look closely, and you will see that the cycle is very violent. It goes from hot and then plunges into a Panic Cycle type move immediately thereafter.

El Niño events are thought to have occurred for thousands of years, and only now are people claiming this is proof of humans changing the environment. It is believed that historically the Indians in Peru sacrificed humans to try to prevent the rains caused by a severe El Niño. Perhaps they might have had better success by offering politicians instead of virgins. These people latch on to anything and now with ZERO proof, they tell everyone that it is Climate Change that is making it hotter.

Perhaps we should just turn off the energy used by mainstream media and their propaganda as well as in Washington, and end taxes as Roman Emperor Tiberius did during an emergency. I would bet things will get a lot better and real fast.

Mar 28 2023

Mississippi Death Toll Now 25 as Recovery Efforts Continue


Posted originally on the CTH on March 27, 2023 | Sundance

We loaded a CERT toolbox trailer yesterday that is heading to Mississippi to assist as recovery efforts get underway.  Samaritan’s Purse is now on the ground in two locations, Rolling Fork and Armory [Register to Volunteer Here]  Any Treepers in the impact zone check in and feel free to provide updates on the ground events that relate to your area.

(Via Fox News) – Help began pouring into one of the poorest regions of the U.S. after a deadly tornado tore a path of destruction for more than an hour across a long swath of Mississippi, even as furious new storms Sunday struck across the Deep South.

At least 25 people were killed and dozens of others were injured in Mississippi as the massive storm ripped through more than a half-dozen towns late Friday. A man was also killed in Alabama after his trailer home flipped over several times.

“Everything I can see is in some state of destruction,” said Jarrod Kunze, who drove to the hard-hit Mississippi town of Rolling Fork from his home in Alabama, ready to help “in whatever capacity I’m needed.”

[…] The storm hit so quickly that the sheriff’s department in Rolling Fork barely had time to set off sirens to warn the community of 2,000 residents, said Mayor Eldridge Walker.

“And by the time they initiated the siren, the storm had hit and it tore down the siren that’s located right over here,” Walker said, referring to an area just blocks from downtown.  The mayor said his town was devastated.

“Sharkey County, Mississippi, is one of the poorest counties in the state of Mississippi, but we’re still resilient,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go, and we certainly thank everybody for their prayers and for anything they will do or can do for this community.”

[…] Following Biden’s declaration, federal funding will be available for recovery efforts in Mississippi’s Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe and Sharkey counties, including temporary housing, home repairs, loans covering uninsured property losses and other individual and business programs, the White House said in a statement.

The twister flattened entire blocks, obliterated houses, ripped a steeple off a church and toppled a municipal water tower.

Based on early data, the tornado received a preliminary EF-4 rating, the National Weather Service office in Jackson said in a tweet. An EF-4 tornado has top wind gusts between 166 mph and 200 mph.

In Rolling Fork, the tornado reduced homes to piles of rubble and flipped cars on their sides. Other parts of the Deep South were digging out from damage caused by other suspected twisters. (read more)

Samaritan’s Purse is setting up in the following locations:

ROLLING FORK/SILVER CITY
Lake Washington First Baptist Church
1068 Lake Washington Rd E
Glen Allan, MS 38744

AMORY
First Assembly of God Amory
521 Tschudi Road
Amory, MS 38821

[Details and information Here]

Dear God, please bring the residents and families of those in the Mississippi area to Your throne of comfort. The shock and pain is unimaginable as they anguish over the loss of their town, their homes, their sense of normalcy and possibly their loved ones.

Father of mercy and comfort wrap Your loving arms around them. Hold them close. Help them to breathe and overcome the choking knot of despair in their throat.  Raise them, strengthen them, provide assurance for them.  Help the victims to see forward.  Dear Lord please provide wisdom and strength to the leaders of every community.

Please God, provide strength for their continued faith in You through this horrific destruction. Lavish them with Your love and fill the void of loss in their hearts.

In Jesus’ powerful name, I believe and pray.

Amen.

Mar 2 2023

The test that exonerates CO2


The test that exonerates CO2

The test that exonerates CO2

6 days ago

Guest Blogger

521 Comments

By Javier Vinós

Most people don’t have a clear understanding of the greenhouse effect (GHE). It is not complicated to understand, but it is usually not well explained. It is often described as “heat-trapping,” but that is incorrect. Greenhouse gases (GHG) do not trap heat, even if more heat resides within the climate system due to their presence in the atmosphere. The truth is that after adjusting to a change in GHG levels, the planet still returns all the energy it receives from the Sun. Otherwise, it would continue warming indefinitely. So, there is no change in the energy returned. How do GHGs produce GHE?

GHGs cause the atmosphere to be more opaque to infrared radiation. As solar radiation heats mainly the ocean and land surface of the planet, GHGs absorb thermal emission from the surface at the lower troposphere and immediately pass that energy along to other molecules (typically N2 and O2) through collisions that occur much faster than the time it would take to re-emit the radiation. This warms the lower troposphere. The density and temperature decrease rapidly through the troposphere, so molecules are colder and more separated at the upper troposphere. Now GHGs have a chance to emit IR radiation so when they finally collide with another molecule, they are colder so GHGs have a cooling effect in the upper troposphere and stratosphere.

Because GHGs make the atmosphere more opaque to IR radiation, when they are present the emission to space from the planet normally does not take place from the surface (as happens in the Moon). Part of it still takes place from the surface through the atmospheric window, but most of it takes place from higher in the atmosphere. We can define a theoretical effective emission height as the average height at which the Earth’s outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) is being emitted. The temperature at which the Earth emits is the temperature at the effective emission height in the atmosphere. That temperature, when measured from space is 250 K (-23°C), not 255 which is the calculated temperature for a theoretical blackbody Earth. That temperature corresponds to a height of about 5 km, which we call the effective emission height.

The last piece we need to understand the GHE is the lapse rate, which in the troposphere is positive, meaning that temperature decreases with height. Without a positive lapse rate, the GHE does not work. Since GHGs cause the planet to emit from a higher altitude, due to making the atmosphere more opaque to IR radiation, that altitude is colder due to the lapse rate. The Earth still needs to return all the energy received from the Sun, but colder molecules emit less. So, the planet will go through a period when it will emit less than it should, warming the surface and the lower troposphere until the new height of emission achieves the temperature necessary to return all the energy, at which point the planet stops warming.

The GHE simply states that the temperature at the surface (Ts) is just the temperature of emission (Te) plus the lapse rate (Γ) times the height of emission (Ze).


Ts = Te + ΓZe

Held & Soden (2000) illustrated it in figure 1:



This is how the GHE actually works. An increase in CO2 means an increase in the height of emission. Since the temperature of emission must remain the same, the temperature from the surface to the new height of emission must increase. The increase is small but significant. As Held and Soden say:



“The increase in opacity due to a doubling of CO2 causes Ze to rise by ≈150 meters. This results in a reduction in the effective temperature of the emission across the tropopause by ≈(6.5K/km) (150 m) ≈1 K.”Held and Soden

So, the temperature at the surface must increase by 1K. That’s the direct warming caused by the doubling of CO2, before the feedbacks (mainly water vapor) kick in, further raising the height of emission.

This also has an interesting prediction. If the warming is due to an increase in CO2 when the increase takes place and the altitude of emission increases, the planet should emit less OLR as the new altitude is colder and a reduced OLR is the warming mechanism. Once the warming takes place, the OLR will become the same as before the GHG increase. It says so in Held and Soden’s figure 1 caption: “Note that the effective emission temperature (Te) remains unchanged.” Same Te, same OLR. So, if CO2 is responsible for the surface temperature increase, we should first expect less OLR and then the same OLR. If at any time we detect more OLR that would indicate another cause for the warming. Anything that makes the surface warmer, except GHGs, will increase the temperature of emission, increasing OLR.

So, this is the test:

– Surface warming but less or same OLR: CO2 is guilty as charged

– Surface warming and more OLR: CO2 is innocent

And the test results can be evaluated for example with Derwitte and Clerbaux 2018:



“decadal changes of the Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) as measured by the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System from 2000 to 2018, the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment from 1985 to 1998, and the High-resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder from 1985 to 2018 are analyzed. The OLR has been rising since 1985, and correlates well with the rising global temperature.“Derwitte and Clerbaux 2018

CO2 is innocent. Its fingerprint is not found at the crime scene. Something else is warming the planet and causing the increase in OLR.

Bibliography:

Dewitte, S. and Clerbaux, N., 2018. Decadal changes of earth’s outgoing longwave radiation. Remote Sensing, 10(10), p.1539.
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/10/1539/pdf

Held, I.M. and Soden, B.J., 2000. Water vapor feedback and global warming. Annual review of energy and the environment, 25(1), pp.441-475.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.energy.25.1.441

Stephens, G.L., O’Brien, D., Webster, P.J., Pilewski, P., Kato, S. and Li, J.L., 2015. The albedo of Earth. Reviews of geophysics, 53(1), pp.141-163.

5

Feb 10 2023

Death Toll in Turkey/Syria Earthquake Climbs Above 20,000 – With an Estimated 6,500 Buildings Collapsed


Posted originally on the CTH on February 9, 2023 | Sundance 

Hopes are fading amid the rescue and recovery workers in the aftermath of the horrific earthquake that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria.  Reuters is providing an update on the devastation in the region.  The scale of the impact is widespread and devastating as even more recovery workers continue arriving.

ANTAKYA, Turkey/JANDARIS, Syria, Feb 9, (Reuters) – Cold, hunger and despair gripped hundreds of thousands of people left homeless after the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria three days ago as the death toll passed 20,000 on Thursday.

The rescue of a 2-year-old boy after 79 hours trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay, Turkey, and several other people raised spirits among weary search crews. But hopes were fading that many more would be found alive in the ruins of towns and cities.

[…] Hundreds of thousands of people in both countries have been left homeless in the middle of winter. Many have camped out in makeshift shelters in supermarket car parks, mosques, roadsides or amid the ruins, often desperate for food, water and heat.

[…] Authorities say some 6,500 buildings in Turkey collapsed and countless more were damaged.

The death toll in Turkey rose to 17,406, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said. In Syria, already devastated by nearly 12 years of civil war, more than 3,300 people have died, according to the government and a rescue service in the rebel-held northwest.

In the devastated Syrian town of Jandaris, Ibrahim Khalil Menkaween walked in the rubble-strewn streets clutching a white body bag. He said he had lost seven members of his family, including his wife and two of his brothers.

“I’m holding this bag for when they bring out my brother, and my brother’s young son, and both of their wives, so we can pack them in bags,” he said. “The situation is very bad. And there is no aid.”

Turkish officials say some 13.5 million people were affected in an area spanning roughly 450 km (280 miles) from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east. In Syria, people were killed as far south as Hama, 250 km from the epicentre.

Rescue crews looked for survivors at the site of a collapsed building in the dark in the city of Adiyaman with temperatures below freezing, Turkish broadcasters showed.

[…] There were still some signs of hope.

A 2-year-old boy was picked out of the rubble by a Romanian and Polish rescue team in Hatay 79 hours after the earthquake, video released by Turkey’s Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) on Thursday showed.

The boy, wearing a blue, white and black striped sweater, cried as he was gently lifted from the hole where he had been trapped. He was carried away on a blanket. No other details were immediately available.

Another video from IHH showed a helmeted and dust-streaked rescuer weeping with emotion after successfully freeing a little girl from the rubble of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras. (read more)

All-powerful Father, as we see all of the destruction caused by this natural disaster, we mourn for all that has been lost and the fragility of this life.

Lord God of mercy, please comfort those who have lost somebody they love, and those who are yet still searching. Give them comfort and peace.

Heavenly Father, be a protective wing for those who have survived, but lost their home. Grant the men, women and children the needed fortitude and assistance they need to recover and rebuild.  Show me how best to pray for their needs and guide my prayer. 

Lord God of all creation, be strong with directed purpose for those whose job it is to search through the rubble for those lost.  Give them endurance and strength as they complete their responsibilities.

God of comfort and mercy, help us come together as one body in You during this time of tragedy.

You are the redeemer, the source of all strength and courage, please provide us with reassurance, humanity and faith. 

In Your holy and merciful name, we humbly kneel and pray. 

~ Amen.