At least 4,800 are now believed to have died in earthquakes in Turkey ad Syria.
And there are fears that the death toll will rise considerably in the coming days.
Rescuers are braving freezing darkness, aftershocks and collapsing buildings, as they dig for survivors buried by a string of earthquakes.
The confirmed death toll across the two countries has soared above 4,700 after a swarm of strong tremors near the Turkey-Syria border – the largest of which measured at a massive 7.8-magnitude.
Turkish and Syrian disaster response teams report more than 5,600 buildings have been flattened across several cities, including many multi-storey apartment blocks that were filled with sleeping residents when the first quake struck.
Through the night, survivors used their bare hands to pick over the twisted ruins of multi-storey apartment blocks – trying to save family, friends and anyone else sleeping inside when the first quake struck early yesterday.
Turkey’s relief agency AFAD put the latest death toll at 3,381 in that country alone – bringing the confirmed tally in both Turkey and Syria to 4,890.
Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake’s epicentre between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, a city of two million where entire blocks now lie in ruins under gathering snow.
