A grim but crucial mission continues for Australian rescue crews working in earthquake-devastated Turkey, where the task has a particularly personal connection for one of the team.
Onur Ayyildiz is among the 72-member delegation which arrived in Turkey on Sunday and has been working tirelessly since, helping recover bodies from rubble in the southern city of Antakya, forever hoping to find a survivor.
For the NSW Fire and Rescue professional, it's tough seeing the devastation of the 7.8-magnitude quake.
"It's a bit surreal and overwhelming, considering it's my parents' homeland," Mr Ayyildiz told AAP.
Because Turkish was his first language, Mr Ayyildiz is doubling as a translator for his team as it works alongside desperate locals and other international rescue crews.
The Australians have split into groups to patrol a designated sector in the centre of Antakya, one of the worst-affected cities in the 10 Turkish provinces impacted by the earthquake.
The death count in Turkey and neighbouring Syria topped 42,000 on Friday as boodies continued to be recovered from collapsed buildings.
The Aussies were approached directly by a local to help retrieve 13 people, including six children, from the rubble under a four-storey apartment building, of which only the top floor and roof are visible.
Before the Australians arrived people in the neighbourhood were trying to recover the dead by digging with bare hands.
Neighbours of the apartment block said families from a nearby house ran into an alleyway between the buildings to take cover, but were crushed when the aftershock hit.
An Australian engineer assessed the area could be stabilised with timber, allowing access to remove most of the bodies.
But as the mission began, cement started to shift.
"It can go pear-shaped very quickly, if it collapses there's no way out," one of the team told AAP.
To not risk the lives of the Australians, heavy machinery was brought in.
"In the end we want to make sure everyone is safe, we don't want anyone else hurt," Australian operations officer Grant Rice said.
"I want everyone to get back home to Australia."
Despite spending close to a week in Turkey, the Australian crew remains shocked by the extent of the damage.
Team leader Scott Hanley said the situation was tragic and he had never been deployed to a disaster of this scale.
"This is definitely one that no one envisaged ... we train for this, but things of this magnitude, I don't think anyone can predict or be prepared for," he said from beside a crumbled apartment block.
"Just walking the streets now, it's hard to comprehend how many people have been lost, where they all are and how long that will take to find and recover them."
