ISTANBUL — As temperatures dipped below freezing, rescue crews raced Tuesday to free those trapped under the thousands of buildings that collapsed in the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that rocked southern Turkey and northern Syria, even as the death toll rose past 6,000.
Rescue workers scrabbled frantically at mounds of rubble, alert for the cries of still-conscious survivors. Aftershocks, including a strong jolt of magnitude 5.7 on Tuesday, added to the difficulty and fear. Trained emergency personnel and heavy equipment were in short supply as affected areas waited for domestic and international aid to arrive, held up in some cases by harsh weather conditions that snarled airports.
The full scale of the devastation left by the massive temblor — one of the most powerful to hit the region in more than a century — still has yet to become clear. But on Tuesday evening, Turkey’s disaster management agency said that at least 4,500 people had died. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier that more than 22,000 others were injured, and he declared a three-month state of emergency in 10 provinces affected by the earthquake.
