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ANTAKYA, Türkiye. – Rescuers raced yesterday to find survivors in the rubble of thousands of buildings brought down by two large earthquakes and multiple aftershocks that struck Türkiye and neighbouring Syria on Monday, with the discovery of more bodies raising the death toll to more than 7 o00.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday declared a state of emergency for three months in 1o provinces and announced the death toll in the country alone has risen to 5 434.

Countries around the world dispatched teams to assist in the rescue efforts, and Türkiye’s disaster management agency said more than 24 400 emergency personnel were now on the ground. But with such a wide swath of territory hit by Monday’s earthquakes and nearly 6 000 buildings confirmed to have collapsed in Türkiye alone, the efforts were spread thin.

Attempts to reach survivors were also impeded by temperatures below freezing and close to 200 aftershocks, which made the search through unstable structures perilous.

Across Hatay province, just southwest of the earthquake’s epicentre, officials say as many as 1 500 buildings were destroyed and many people reported relatives being trapped under the rubble with no aid or rescue teams arriving.

In areas where teams worked, occasional cheers broke out through the night as survivors were brought out of the rubble.

The quake, which was centred in Türkiye’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo.

Sebastien Gay, the head of mission in Syria for Doctors Without Borders, said health facilities in northern Syria were overwhelmed with medical personnel working around the clock to respond to the huge numbers of wounded.”

In Türkiye’s Hatay province, thousands of people sheltered in sports centres or fair halls, while others spent the night outside, huddled in blankets around fires.

Türkiye 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 yesterday at the province’s port of Iskenderun, where a hospital collapsed, to transport survivors in need of medical care to the nearby city of Mersin. Thick, black smoke rose from another area of the port, where firefighters have not yet been able to douse a fire that broke out among shipping containers that were toppled by the quakes.

In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, a provincial capital about 33 km from the epicentre, people took refuge in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centres.

The death toll in Syria climbed over to  1 832 people.

Authorities fear the death toll will keep climbing as the rescuers look for survivors among tangles of metal and concrete spread across the region beset by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis.

In the latest pledges of international help, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday it was especially concerned about areas of Türkiye and Syria.

“We’re especially concerned about areas where we do not yet have information,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the WHO’s executive board meeting in Geneva. “Damage mapping is one way to understand where we need to focus our attention.”

Meanwhile, extended family members have pulled a newborn baby alive from the rubble of a home in northern Syria, after finding her still tied by her umbilical cord to her mother, who died in Monday’s massive quake, a relative said.

The infant is the sole survivor of her immediate family, the rest of whom were all killed  in the quake, Khalil al-Suwadi said.

“We heard a voice while we were digging,” Suwadi said. 

“We cleared the dust and found the baby with the umbilical cord (intact) so we cut it and my cousin took her to hospital.” – CGTN -AFP