Fourteen days after two powerful earthquakes shook southern Turkey and northern Syria, in what has been described as one of the deadliest of the 21st century, the death toll has surpassed 46,000. Dozens of towns have been reduced to rubble with six-story buildings crumbling in a matter of seconds. After five days, there was already no place for the dead in the cemeteries of the affected regions while hundreds of thousands of people were sleeping in the open air, in often subzero conditions. Many have slept in their cars or in makeshift tents under market stalls, with nowhere else to go. For more than a week, rescuers worked day and night, hampered by a large winter storm, in an attempt to find the survivors.
