Turkey-Syria Quake: Death toll likely to ‘more than double’

The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria is likely to "more than double", said the UN yesterday, five days after the natural disaster struck the region, leaving more than 25,000 dead.

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths, speaking to Sky News yesterday, said he expected tens of thousands more deaths.

At least 25,880 people have been confirmed dead after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey and north-western Syria on Monday, with multiple aftershocks.

Officials and medics said 22,327 people had died in Turkey and 3,553 in Syria.

Griffiths said: "I think it is difficult to estimate precisely as we need to get under the rubble, but I'm sure it will double or more," said Griffiths.

"That's terrifying. This is nature striking back in a really harsh way."

He said that a 72-hour period after a disaster was usually the "golden period" for rescues, which had now expired, but that survivors were still being pulled out of the rubble.

Tens of thousands of local and international rescue workers are still scouring through flattened neighbourhoods despite freezing weather that has compounded the misery of millions now in desperate need of aid.

However, Austrian soldiers and German rescue workers called off their searches for several hours in southern Hatay, citing a difficult security situation and clashes between local groups.

In the midst of destruction and despair, miraculous tales of survival continue to emerge.

"Is the world there?" asked 70-year-old Menekse Tabak as she was pulled out from the concrete in the southern city of Kahramanmaras -- the epicentre of Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor -- to applause and cries praising God, according to a video on state broadcaster TRT Haber.

In the city of Antakya, a two-month-old baby was found alive 128 hours after the quake, state news agency Anadolu reported.

A two-year-old girl, a six-month pregnant woman, plus a four-year-old and her father, were among those rescued five days after the quake, Turkish media reported.

In southern Turkey, families clutched each other in grief at a cotton field transformed into a cemetery, with an endless stream of bodies arriving for swift burial.

Compounding the anguish, the United Nations has warned that at least 870,000 people urgently need hot meals across Turkey and Syria. In Syria alone, up to 5.3 million people may have been made homeless.

A border crossing between Armenia and Turkey opened for the first time in 35 years yesterday to allow five trucks carrying food and water into the quake-hit region.

Turkey's disaster agency said over 32,000 people from Turkish organisations are working on search and rescue efforts. In addition, there are 8,294 international rescuers.

In Syria, where years of conflict have ravaged the healthcare system and parts of the country remain under the control of rebels, aid has been slow to arrive.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took a flight full of emergency medical equipment into the quake-stricken city of Aleppo yesterday.

Tedros toured damaged areas of the city tweeting: "I'm heartbroken to see the conditions survivors are facing -- freezing weather and extremely limited access to shelter, food, water, heat and medical care".

The Syrian government said it had approved the delivery of humanitarian assistance to quake-hit areas outside its control in Idlib province. A convoy was expected to leave today.

The winter freeze has left thousands of people either spending nights in their cars or huddling around makeshift fires that have become ubiquitous across the quake-hit region.

In Turkey, five days of grief and anguish have been slowly building into rage at the poor quality of buildings as well as the government's response to the country's worst disaster in nearly a century.

Officials in the country say 12,141 buildings were either destroyed or seriously damaged in the earthquake.

"Damage was to be expected, but not the type of damage that you are seeing now", said Mustafa Erdik, a professor at Istanbul-based Bogazici University.

Turkish police yesterday detained 12 people, including contractors, over collapsed buildings in the southeastern provinces of Gaziantep and Sanliurfa, local media reported.