More than 8,700 people have been killed so far after an earthquake hit Turkey and Syria.
The first 7.8 magnitude quake hit Turkish city Gaziantep in the early hours of Monday, reducing thousands of homes and buildings across the south of the country and northern Syria to rubble as people slept. Another devastating 7.5 magnitude tremor then struck more than 60 miles away.
As search teams, rescuers and emergency aid from around the world poured into the countries on Tuesday, it was revealed that more than 7,700 lives had been claimed so far. Though that death toll was expected to rise, and this morning had reportedly passed more than 8,700.
READ MORE: How people in Greater Manchester can help after Turkey and Syria earthquake
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said 13 million of the country’s 85 million were affected in some way — and declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces in order to manage the response. For the entire quake-hit area, that number could be as high as 23 million people, according to Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergencies officer with the World Health Organisation.
More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the debris in Turkey alone, and some 380,000 have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, said Turkish vice president Fuat Oktay. They huddled in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres, while others spent the night outside in blankets gathering around fires.
Many took to social media to plead for assistance for loved ones believed to be trapped under the rubble – and Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying all calls were being 'collected meticulously' and the information relayed to search teams.
"This is a crisis on top of multiple crises in the affected region," Mr Marschang said in Geneva. Teams from nearly 30 countries around the world headed for Turkey or Syria.
As promises of help flooded in, Turkey said it would only allow vehicles carrying aid to enter the worst-hit provinces of Kahramanmaras, Adiyaman and Hatay in order to speed the effort. The United Nations said it was 'exploring all avenues' to get supplies to rebel-held north-western Syria, where millions live in extreme poverty and rely on humanitarian aid to survive.
Nurgul Atay told the Associated Press she could hear her mother’s voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, but that her and others’ efforts to get into the ruins had been futile without any heavy equipment to help. "If only we could lift the concrete slab we’d be able to reach her," she said.
"My mother is 70 years old, she won’t be able to withstand this for long." But in the north-western Syrian town of Jinderis, a young girl called Nour was pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building on Monday.
A rescuer cradled her head in his hands and tenderly wiped dust from around her eyes as she lay amid crushed concrete and twisted metal before being pulled out and passed to another man. Turkey has large numbers of troops in the border region with Syria and has tasked the military to aid in the rescue efforts, including setting up tents for the homeless and a field hospital in Hatay province.
Defence minister Hulusi Akar said a humanitarian aid brigade based in Ankara and eight military search and rescue teams had also been deployed. A navy ship docked on Tuesday at the province’s port of Iskenderun, where a hospital collapsed, to transport survivors in need of medical care to a nearby city.
The affected area in Syria is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Turkey is home to millions of refugees from the Syrian civil war.
The rebel-held enclave is packed with some four million people displaced from other parts of the country by the war. Many live in buildings that were already damaged by military bombardments.
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