With hope fading to find survivors, stretched rescue teams toiled through the night in Turkey and Syria, searching for signs of life in the rubble of thousands of buildings toppled by a catastrophic earthquake.
In the Turkish city of Malatya, bodies were placed side by side on the ground, covered in blankets, while rescuers waited for funeral vehicles to pick them up, according to former journalist Ozel Pikal who saw eight bodies pulled from the ruins of building.
Civil defense workers and residents search through the rubble of collapsed buildings in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Monday, Feb. 6, 2023.Turkey's disaster management agency said the country's death toll passed 8,500. The Syrian Health Ministry said the death toll in government-held areas has climbed past 1,200, while at least 1,400 people have died in the rebel-held northwest, according to volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets.
Syrian officials said the bodies of more than 100 Syrians who died during the earthquake in Turkey were brought back home for burial through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing. Mazen Alloush, an official on the Syrian side of the border, said 20 more bodies were on their way to the border, adding that all of them were Syrian refugees who fled war in their country.
Nearly two days after the quake, rescuers pulled a 3-year-old boy, Arif Kaan, from beneath the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Kahramanmaras, which is not far from the epicenter. "For now, the name of hope in Kahramanmaras is Arif Kaan," a Turkish television reporter proclaimed as the dramatic rescue was broadcast to the country.
On Monday afternoon in a northwestern Syrian town, residents found a crying newborn still connected by the umbilical cord to her deceased mother. The baby was the only member of her family to survive a building collapse in the small town of Jinderis, relatives told The Associated Press.
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