Rescuers in Türkiye and Syria have searched through the night, hoping to pull more survivors from the rubble after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 4,000 people.
Authorities feared the death toll from Monday's earthquake would keep climbing as rescuers looked for survivors among tangles of metal and concrete spread across the region.
Survivors cried out for help from within mountains of debris as first responders contended with rain and snow.
Seismic activity continued to rattle the region, including another jolt nearly as powerful as the initial quake.
Workers carefully pulled away slabs of concrete and reached for bodies as desperate families waited for news of loved ones.
Tens of thousands who were left homeless in Turkey and Syria faced a night in the cold.
Area affected by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake
In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, a provincial capital about 33 kilometres from the epicentre, people took refuge in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.
Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared seven days of national mourning.
US President Joe Biden called Mr Erdogan to express condolences and offer assistance to the NATO ally. The White House said it was sending search-and-rescue teams to support Türkiye's efforts.
The quake, which was centred in Turkey's south-eastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo.
International community offers help
On the Syrian side, the area is divided between government-controlled territory and the country's last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces.
In the rebel-held enclave, hundreds of families remained trapped in rubble, the opposition emergency organisation known as the White Helmets said in a statement.
The area is packed with some 4 million people displaced from other parts of the country by the war. Many live in buildings that are already wrecked from military bombardments.
Strained medical centres quickly filled with injured people, rescue workers said. Some facilities had to be emptied, including a maternity hospital, according to the SAMS medical organisation.
More than 7,800 people were rescued across 10 provinces, according to Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkey's disaster management authority.
The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit north-west Türkiye in 1999.
The US Geological Survey measured Monday's quake at 7.8, with a depth of 18 kilometres. Hours later, a 7.5 magnitude temblor, likely triggered by the first, struck more than 100 kilometres away.
The second jolt caused a multi-storey apartment building in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa to topple onto the street in a cloud of dust as bystanders screamed, according to video of the scene.
Thousands of buildings were reported collapsed in a wide area extending from Syria's cities of Aleppo and Hama to Türkiye's Diyarbakir, more than 330 kilometres to the north-east.
In Türkiye alone, more than 5,600 buildings were destroyed, authorities said. Hospitals were damaged, and one collapsed in the city of Iskenderun.
Offers of help — from search-and-rescue teams to medical supplies and money — poured in from dozens of countries, as well as the European Union and NATO.
The vast majority were for Türkiye, with a Russian and even an Israeli promise of help to the Syrian government, but it was not clear if any would go to the devastated rebel-held pocket in the north-west.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that Australia will provide an initial $10 million in humanitarian assistance to agencies helping people affected by the earthquakes.
Thousands injured across Türkiye, Syria
The opposition's Syrian Civil Defense described the situation in the enclave as "disastrous".
The opposition-held area, centred on the province of Idlib, has been under siege for years, with frequent Russian and government air strikes.
The territory depends on a flow of aid from Türkiye for everything from food to medical supplies.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said 224 buildings in north-western Syria were destroyed and at least 325 were damaged, including aid warehouses.
The UN had been assisting 2.7 million people each month via cross-border deliveries, which could now be disrupted.
In the small Syrian rebel-held town of Azmarin in the mountains by the Turkish border, the bodies of several dead children, wrapped in blankets, were brought to a hospital.
In the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, rescuers pulled two children alive from the rubble, and one could be seen lying on a stretcher on the snowy ground.
Turkish broadcaster CNN Turk said a woman was pulled out alive in Gaziantep after a rescue dog detected her.
In Adana, 20 or so people, some in emergency rescue jackets, used power saws atop the concrete mountain of a collapsed building to open up space for any survivors to climb out or be rescued.
In Diyarbakir, hundreds of rescue workers and civilians formed lines across a huge mound of wreckage, passing down broken concrete pieces and household belongings as they searched for trapped survivors.
At least 2,921 people were killed in 10 Turkish provinces, with nearly 16,000 injured, according to Turkish authorities.
The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed to 656 people, with some 1,400 injured, according to the Health Ministry.
In the country's rebel-held north-west, groups that operate there said at least 450 people died, with many hundreds injured.
Story By: AP
Original Story link:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-07/turkiye-syria-earthquake-rescuers-survivors-death-toll/101941428
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