ANKARA - The death toll from two earthquakes that hit Turkiye on Feb 6 has risen to 48,448, the Turkish Interior Minister said Monday.

"The number of foreign nationals among the killed is 6,660. Most of them are our Syrian brothers," Suleyman Soylu said at a press conference in the central Malatya province, which was also attended by Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy.

The Turkish authorities are still working on the identification of 1,615 victims, Soylu said.

He said the debris removal are underway and that Turkiye will start the demolition of heavily damaged buildings in the next stage.

The powerful earthquakes and major aftershocks centered in southern Turkiye have caused huge property losses and left tens of thousands of people homeless.

More than 433,500 tents have been installed in quake-hit provinces in southern Turkiye, along with 21,000 containers for temporary sheltering, the minister said, noting that the country plans to install a total of 115,585 containers.

More than two million people fled quake-hit provinces across southern Turkiye, official statistics show.

ANKARA - Turkiye's capital Ankara has become a hub for hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors looking forward to starting a new life in the aftermath of the devastating quakes in their homeland.

The capital hosts some 240,000 survivors, the biggest share of an estimated 3.3 million scattered across the country, according to official figures released last week.

However, relief organizations and official sources put the number of people who found refuge in Ankara at at least 500,000, saying figures have increased as some citizens have not yet registered with local government offices.

Since the earthquake, it has become common to see many cars in Ankara with license plates from the 11 provinces affected by the catastrophe, confirming the arrival of a sizeable survivor community.

Gurkan Sasmaz from Kahramanmaras Province, the epicenter of the twin earthquakes on Feb 6, said it is still very early to plan the future as the trauma is fresh, but life must go on despite the tragedy.

"We cannot see our future. Everything is blurred. We need some time to make a plan," Sasmaz, a 46-year-old pharmaceutical representative, told Xinhua.

Still traumatized by the loss of 16 relatives, he estimated that half of the displaced people would eventually not return to their hometowns.

Sasmaz, who is living in Ankara for several years, went immediately to hard-hit Kahramanmaras hours after the tremors and brought back his son and ex-wife, for whom he is trying to build a new life in the capital.

He is very close to the survivor community and strives to make the transition easy for relatives and friends who have chosen Ankara as their new living ground.

"Ankara is the first city selected by earthquake victims to come and live in because of two reasons: it is far away from the earthquake zone and it is a huge city, the capital city, where people can find a lot of opportunities," Sasmaz explained.

Ankara, a city of 5.6 million inhabitants, is located about 700 km west of the epicenter of magnitude -7.7 and -7.6 quakes that have claimed more than 46,000 lives in Turkiye, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Described as the worst disaster in the region in a century, the quakes have affected more than 13 million people in large swaths of land and destroyed over 214,000 buildings.

Damla Ergoren is one of those who lost most of her fortune when her building collapsed in the disaster. Fortunately, she, his husband and her 11-year-old daughter are unscathed.

The family from Antakya city of Hatay Province has found refuge in Ankara in a host family that has agreed to accommodate them for a couple of months until they get on their feet.

For a week, her family camped in open ground before they were evacuated by the government to Ankara.

Despite losing her home, Ergoren expressed optimism about the future as she feels supported by "good people" who have opened their houses.

"We are still under the shock of what happened to us and to our beautiful, but I believe we can rebuild what has been destroyed. It will take time but it's feasible," she said.

Since earthquakes struck Syria, signs of a thaw in relationships emerge in region

A number of Arab states have extended their support to Syria following the earthquakes that devastated parts of the country early last month, and experts say the moves represent a genuine attempt by these countries to rebuild relations with the war-torn country.

Countries across the Middle East are now focused on rebuilding their economies after years of conflict and the mess left by external powers, they said.

"Day by day the Middle East is going to become a region that is shaped by regional diplomacy rather than international developments," said Gokhan Ereli, Gulf studies coordinator at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Turkiye. He added that the Arab states' outreach and President Bashar al-Assad's efforts are part of this.

He described the Arab states' reaching out as a "limited but necessary engagement" because there had been earlier efforts to reach out to the Syrian government even before the earthquakes. But as the "US is still against Assad", this had limited the engagement.

"But we are talking about a regional normalization, and no one should (fall) behind regional normalization periods (and) that is why it is a 'necessary engagement'," Ereli said.

Arhama Siddiqa, an expert on the Middle East and a research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, in Pakistan, said: "External powers created a lot of mess in the Middle East. Now, Middle Eastern countries are trying — in their own space by their own means — to build their economies."

After the earthquakes, she said, even Arab states that previously had difficult relations with Syria now see this as an opportunity to improve ties. A case in point was Assad's meeting with the visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in Damascus on Monday, the first visit by a top Egyptian diplomat to the country since the Syrian civil war broke out 12 years ago.

Relations between Syria and Egypt were briefly cut during the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of then president Mohammed Morsi. Egypt reopened its embassy in Syria in 2013.

Different approach

Syria was a member of the Arab League, a 22-member regional organization formed in Cairo in 1945, until its suspension in 2011 following street protests. However, in recent years a number of Arab states, most prominently the United Arab Emirates, have changed their approach and begun to normalize ties with Syria.

In November 2021, Assad met UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus, making him the first Emirati official to visit since the 2011 uprising that escalated into a multifaceted war. The two met again in January, and Sheikh Abdullah affirmed the commitment and keenness of the UAE to support efforts to find a political solution to the Syrian civil war.

In the wake of the quakes, too, Assad visited Oman and met with Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, the state news agency SANA said. The two reportedly discussed fraternal ties and areas of collaboration, agreeing to enhance ties in various areas.

At the Munich Security Conference in Germany last month, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud acknowledged that the Arab world needed a new approach toward Syria.

He was widely quoted as saying consensus was building in the Arab world, that isolating Syria "was not working" and that dialogue with Damascus was needed at some point to at least address humanitarian issues and the return of refugees.

Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, and head of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, said there are three main reasons why the Arab states are changing their policies toward Syria.

First, he said, civil wars have "a natural cycle" where they reach a height "and then they slowly peter out because civil wars are impermanent by nature".

Civil wars are "very intense but eventually they die down", Kamrava said. "People want to go back to their routines."

The second reason is that Assad "has defied all expectations and stayed in power" because "we have not seen mass defections of the Syrian military", and the Syrian state "has pretty much stayed intact".

Third, the Arab governments' realignment of their foreign policies toward Syria after 12 years of civil conflict shows that they "have finally decided that perhaps the Syrian opposition is not worth the expenditure".

ANKARA - One person was killed, 69 others were injured after a 5.6 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkiye on Monday, three weeks after the massive quakes that claimed more than 44,000 lives, the country's disaster agency said.

The earthquake's epicenter was located at the Yesilyurt district of Malatya province, which had already been struck by the powerful tremors on Feb 6.

A total of 25 buildings that had previously been damaged by the tremors earlier this month collapsed on Monday, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said.

On Feb 6, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Turkiye's southern province of Kahramanmaras at 4:17 am local time (0117 GMT), followed by a magnitude 6.4 quake a few minutes later in the country's southern province of Gaziantep and a magnitude 7.6 earthquake at 1:24 pm local time (1024 GMT) in the Kahramanmaras Province.

Another two earthquakes jolted Hatay province in southern Turkiye on Feb 20, killing six people.

More than 200 Syrian organizations have urged the UN and key donors to draw up an emergency response plan for Syria in 2023, emphasizing that sanctions targeting government officials should not affect ordinary citizens or the delivery of humanitarian aid.

They also joined in demanding an investigation into delays in the delivery of aid and compensation to quake survivors in northwestern Syria in the first 140 hours after two catastrophic earthquakes jolted the country and Turkiye on Feb 6.

In a Feb 21 statement, the Syrian civil society organizations said the quakes were not only a humanitarian catastrophe but also could develop into a "political cataclysm "that could further exacerbate the response in Syria.

They also said the "abject failure "to deliver any emergency aid had cost countless innocent lives, which could have been avoided by early intervention.

Thirty-five NGOs made a similar call on Feb 14, demanding "unfettered access and a massive scale-up" of the humanitarian response in Syria. Two days earlier, the UN's chief humanitarian aid coordinator, Martin Griffiths, tweeted that the world had "failed the people in northwest Syria", and he vowed to "correct this failure as fast as we can".

After meeting with United Nations officials on Feb 13, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed to allow UN aid to pass through the country's rebel-held northwest using two new border crossings for three months.

Some have blamed politicization and Western sanctions for the slow humanitarian response. Syria has been engaged in civil war and divided into enclaves since 2011.

Bad weather conditions and impassable roads have also compounded the challenges facing relief operations.

Kinan Diab, coordinator for the Voices for Displaced Syrians Forum, a collection of more than 40 Syrian civil society organizations operating in Syria and refugee-hosting countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Turkiye and Iraq, said delays in the international response to Syria's plight were unprecedented.

Some people were yet to bury loved ones when two more quakes struck the region this week, and the freezing weather has not helped, especially for families with children who have been protecting themselves "from the war, collapsing buildings, and frostbite", said Diab, who is based in the United Kingdom.

Two fresh temblors jolted southern Turkiye and northern Syria late on Monday.

Psychological support

Hassan Jenedie, executive director at Bousla Development and Innovation, a nonprofit organization in Turkiye, told China Daily that there have been deaths, injuries, displacements and even disappearances of relief workers in Turkiye and Syria.

Yet the Syrian aid workers in Turkiye "are rushing to respond while dealing with its aftermath", he said. "In the communities where we work, ... due to fears of a repeat of the earthquake or aftershocks, residents slept outside their homes.... Due to the terror that residents are experiencing, psychological support may be needed."

Syria's Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Jan 16 that condemned the United States for imposing new sanctions that hinder Syria's import of medical equipment and spare parts.

Syrian Arab Red Crescent President Khaled Hboubati has also called for the lifting of the US and other Western sanctions on Syria to facilitate much-needed relief efforts.

On Feb 9, the US announced a six-month sanctions exemption for transactions aimed at helping disaster relief in Syria. However, Washington's ongoing tensions with Assad's government raise doubts as to how effective the aid efforts will be on the ground, observers said.

The seven-person Sanqi Emergency Rescue Team (ATER), which has been carrying out search and rescue activities in Turkiye for days, arrived in Shanghai on Feb 22 on a Turkish Airlines (THY) flight.

The delegation of the Turkish Consulate General in Shanghai and members of the Turkish Students Association (TOB) greeted the ATER rescue team with flowers and applause at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

During the welcome, some of the Turkish students could not hold back their tears due to their gratitude to the search team and emotional moments were experienced.

Members of the Turkish Student Association applauded the rescue team and thanked them one by one. Turkish Airlines pilots and stewardesses, who brought the rescue team from İstanbul to Shanghai, thanked the rescue team one by one.

Some THY stewardesses gave their badges to the rescue team as a souvenir.

While presenting the flowers to the rescue team, Turkiye's Consul General in Shanghai Hüseyin Emre Engin, said "We are grateful and thankful to you. You are our brother right now."

The rescue team and Turkish citizens took a photo together. The fact that the rescue team's clothes were covered in dust and soil did not pass unnoticed by Turkish citizens. Once again, Turkish citizens were moved by the sacrifices of the rescue team.

Chinese Rescue Teams Become Heroes for Turks

Chinese rescuers worked selflessly for days to save the survivors. All members of the rescue teams won the hearts of the Turkish nation and were greeted with applause wherever they passed.

The Turks now consider all Chinese rescuers heroes. Not only those who participated in the search and rescue efforts in Turkiye, but also the members of the Blue Sky Rescue Team in Shanghai who volunteered to collect aid to be sent to Turkiye.

By standing by Turkiye through this earthquake disaster, the Chinese prove their unwavering friendship. There is no doubt that the Turkish and Chinese people are close friends of each other.

ANKARA -- Turkiye has launched a temporary salary support scheme and banned job cuts in southern provinces hit by the recent earthquakes, the country's official gazette said Wednesday.

The government will provide salary support for employers in provinces under the state of emergency to partially cover the wages of their workers. Employers will be able to benefit from the allowance if their workplaces are "heavily or moderately damaged."

In addition, the government also banned layoffs in the earthquake zone, except for reasons of not complying with the rules of morality and goodwill, closure of the workplace, and expiry of the employment contract, said the report.

The move aims to safeguard workers and businesses in the region from the economic impact of the devastating earthquakes on Feb 6, which have claimed over 42,000 lives.

The earthquakes could cost up to $84 billion, or about 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to a report from the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (TURKONFED).

A total of $70.7 billion of financial damage will result from housing loss, $10.4 billion from national income loss and $2.9 billion from loss of working days, the TURKONFED said in its preliminary report issued four days after the quakes.

The 10 quake-hit provinces, where some 13.5 million people lived, account for 9.3 percent of the country's GDP and 8.7 percent of Turkiye's total exports, with cereals, pulses, oil seeds and their products, steel, agricultural products, textiles and raw materials, and ready-made clothing products as the leading export items from the region.

However, given a mass exodus from the disaster region, it is unlikely for the factories in the region to find enough workers even if they are able to resume production.

In the southern province of Mersin that neighbors the disaster-affected region, 47 institutions and non-governmental organizations made a joint statement on Wednesday, saying the population of the province increased by 40 percent in two weeks because of migration after the earthquake.

"There are 70,000 families coming from the quake region, and an estimated 40,000 will stay here," Vahap Secer, mayor of Mersin Metropolitan Municipality, said in a statement, calling for housing projects in his province too.

Turks have already been struggling for several years with rampant inflation and currency turmoil. The massive earthquakes hitting the country on Feb 6 have further added to their woes.

ANKARA - At least three people were killed and 213 others were sent to hospitals after two fresh earthquakes jolted southern Turkiye on Monday night, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.

Rescue teams have been working in three wreckage sites to save six people trapped in the latest quakes, Soylu told reporters in southern Hatay province, the epicenter of the quakes.

The dual earthquakes, measuring 6.4 and 5.8 magnitude respectively, come two weeks after two massive quakes rocked the same region on Feb. 6, which killed more than 41,000 across the country.

Of the latest earthquakes, the first 6.4-magnitude hit the Defne district of Hatay province at around 20:04 local time (1704 GMT), and the second 5.8-magnitude jolted three minutes later, with the epicenter in Hatay's Samandag district, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said.

The first quake occurred 16.7 kilometers below the surface, while the second was at a depth of 7 km. Mayor of Hatay province Lutfi Savas told the local NTV broadcaster that the latest earthquakes brought down some buildings, and some people were trapped under the debris.

"Weather is cold. Some people entered their houses which were still intact. Some went inside to get their possessions," Savas said.

The tremor was felt in Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Egypt, local media reported. Reports emerging from Syria's Aleppo and Latakia provinces, both were hard hit by the Feb. 6 earthquake, said that there is a state of panic in the two provinces with no immediate reports on losses or possible collapses.

The AFAD said on Monday that more than 6,000 aftershocks have been recorded since Feb. 6. The massive dual quakes two weeks ago killed at least 41,156 and injured 105,505 others across 10 provinces in Turkiye.

The new quakes struck Hatay a few hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the province. Erdogan was caught in the quake during a visit to the police department in Kahramanmaras province, the IHA news agency reported.

Erdogan examined Monday the emergency response work in the southern Hatay and Kahramanmaras provinces where he pledged to revive the quake-hit region.

The government will start the construction of 45,067 houses in Kahramanmaras in March, he said, adding that their plans aim to construct 200,000 houses in 10 provinces in March alone. Enditem

ANKARA/DAMASCUS -- A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck southern Turkiye on Monday night, the country's disaster agency said, two weeks after two strong quakes jolted the region.

The quake was centered in Defne district of the Hatay province which borders Syria.

A 5.8 shock followed the first quake in Samandag district of Hatay, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said.

The province was already hit severely by dual quakes on Feb 6.

Meanwhile, the Syrian National Earthquake Center reported that a magnitude 6.3 earthquake was felt in several Syrian areas on Monday night.

The report said the earthquake struck at 20:04 pm local time (1704 GMT), adding that the epicenter of the earthquake was the Hatay province in Turkiye.

Reports emerging from Aleppo and Latakia provinces, both were hard hit by the Feb 6 earthquake, said that there is a state of panic in the two provinces with no immediate reports on losses or possible collapses.

A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Turkiye's southern province of Kahramanmaras at 4:17 am local time (0117 GMT), followed by a magnitude 6.4 quake a few minutes later in the country's southern province of Gaziantep and a magnitude 7.6 earthquake at 1:24 pm local time (1024 GMT) in the Kahramanmaras Province. 

The Red Cross Society of China sent a batch of humanitarian aid materials to earthquake-hit regions in Turkiye through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Monday.

The shipment containing 20 metric tons of urgently needed cotton tents departed from the Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Monday.

They will be handled by the Turkish Red Crescent Society and distributed to people in affected regions.

China's Red Cross said that it will continue to keep abreast of relief needs in Turkiye and provide assistance.

ANKARA/KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkiye — Rescuers pulled out a couple and their child from rubble early on Saturday, 12 days after the earthquakes that have claimed more than 40,000 lives in Turkiye and more than 5,800 in Syria. However, the child, 12, died later, the semiofficial Anadolu Agency reported.

The three had spent 296 hours under the rubble of an apartment block in Antakya, southern Turkiye, before being rescued. The man and woman were taken to the hospital, but their child died despite on-scene intervention.

The bodies of two other quake victims were also recovered during the international rescue mission, the report said, citing Rysbek Coldoshbayev, captain of the search and rescue team of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kyrgyzstan.

"We heard shouts when we were digging today an hour ago," Atay Osmanov, a member of the rescue team, told Reuters. "When we find people who are alive we are always happy."

Workers asked for complete silence and for everyone to crouch or sit as the teams climbed to the top of the rubble of the building where the family was found to listen for any more sounds using an electronic detector.

As rescue efforts continued, one worker yelled into the rubble: "Take a deep breath if you can hear my voice."

Though survivors were still being dug out of the rubble in Turkiye, for many grieving families their only hope is that the remains of their loved ones will be found so that they can mourn at their grave site.

"Would you pray to find a dead body?" said Akin Bozkurt, a bulldozer operator, as his machine clawed at the rubble of a building in the town of Kahramanmaras. "We do... to deliver the body to the family.

"You recover a body from under tons of rubble. Families are waiting with hope. They want to have a burial ceremony. They want a grave."

Only a handful of people were pulled out alive from the rubble in the past few days, and the Turkish authorities have said they will complete the rescue operations soon and focus on relief work.

More than 46,000 people have been killed after a magnitude-7.8 quake and others struck Turkiye and Syria on Feb 6. The toll is expected to soar, with about 345,000 apartments in Turkiye now known to have been destroyed, and many still missing.

Search and rescue efforts would be "largely completed" by Sunday evening, said Yunus Sezer, head of the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority.

The emergency work was concentrated in Hatay province, which was hit hardest by the quakes, Sezer said. The disaster agency had nearly 13,000 personnel working in the area, he said, and 430,000 people had been evacuated.

Syria plight

In the city of Aleppo, northern Syria, many people have been forced to find new homes for their families. The rich have been able to go to hotels or rent a home in safe areas, while the less fortunate have taken refuge in school-turned-shelters, or even temporary tents in public parks.

At al-Shahba public park in the Bustan al-Qasr area, 24 tents were set up, housing about 149 people. Some tents host more than 10 people.

Ahmad Wannous, a displaced man, fled his home following the earthquakes and took refuge in the park. His son, wife and an extended family of 10 live in one tent.

What happened was like a nightmare, he said.

"When they woke me up I didn't know it was real. I carried my son and ran down the street while the rocks from surrounding buildings were falling."

Wannous was fortunate because his building was still standing, but he still cannot go back until he receives permission from safety teams.

Such a situation is tough for everyone in Aleppo, he said.

                                                                                                      Xinhua

ANKARA -- Turkiye said on Sunday that at least 10,633 Syrian refugees in the country have returned to their homeland voluntarily after the devastating earthquakes that hit southern Turkiye earlier this month.

"Our Syrian brothers, who lost their families and places of stay in the earthquake, returned to their lands voluntarily," Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said during his visit to the military border outposts in the quake-hit southern province of Hatay.

The minister refuted the allegations that Syrians were flooding into the Turkish border after the massive earthquakes which also hit northern Syria, the semi-official Anadolu Agency reported.

"These claims are completely untrue. There is no crossing from the border gate or the borderline. We received information from the relevant authorities and conducted on-site investigations. Contrary to the claim that there is an intense crossing to Turkiye, they stated that Syrian citizens pass from Turkiye to Syria in one direction," the Anadolu quoted Akar as saying.

Turkiye hosts nearly 3.5 million Syrian refugees that fled their country after a civil war erupted in 2011. Nearly half of the refugees have been taking shelter in southern Turkiye which was recently hit by devastating quakes that have caused tremendous destruction in the region.

More than 46,000 people have died in Turkiye and Syria since twin 7.7- and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes struck the Turkish southern province of Kahramanmaras on Feb 6.

ANKARA -- Turkish rescuers pulled out three people alive from rubble early Saturday, 12 days after a devastating earthquake that has claimed more than 40,000 lives in southern Turkiye, but the child later died, the semi-official Anadolu Agency reported.

The man, his wife, and their child had spent 296 hours under the rubble of an apartment block in Antakya, the capital of the southern Turkish province of Hatay, before their rescue. The two adults were taken to the hospital, but the 12-year-old died despite on-scene intervention.

The bodies of two other quake victims were also recovered during the international rescue mission, said the report, citing Rysbek Coldoshbayev, captain of the search and rescue team of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kyrgyzstan.

Meanwhile, Christian Atsu, a Ghanaian footballer was also found dead under apartment debris in southern Hatay, his manager Murat Uzunmehmet told DHA news agency on Saturday.

The former Chelsea and Newcastle winger scored his last goal for Hatayspor in Turkiye's Super Lig on Feb 5, hours before the massive quakes.

Only a handful number of people were pulled out alive from the rubble in the past few days and the Turkish authorities announced that they would complete the rescue operations soon and focus on relief work.

Search and rescue efforts will be "largely completed" by Sunday evening, Yunus Sezer, head of the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, told a press conference.

The emergency work was concentrated in Hatay Province which was hit hardest in the quakes, Sezer said, adding the disaster agency had nearly 13,000 personnel working in the area.

A total of 430,000 people were evacuated from the earthquake area, Sezer said.

Turkish authorities have set up more than 172,000 tents for quake survivors and work is underway to provide more than 200,000 others, while nearly 6,000 containers were provided for their accommodation.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkiye will receive 222,000 tents, 120,000 of them promised by other countries or international organizations.

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay called on property owners to allow free accommodation or rental of vacant property through the "Let my home be your home" website, a state-run campaign that will match quake survivors and donators. The houses registered in the system will be made available to the quake survivor families for a certain time through district governorships, he said, adding in case of trouble at home, the insurance system will come into play.

KAHRAMANMARAS/ANTAKYA, Turkiye — International aid agencies are stepping up efforts to help millions of homeless people — many of whom are sleeping in tents, mosques, schools or cars — 11 days after a massive earthquake hit Turkiye and neighboring Syria, killing more than 43,000.

Two people were reported to have been pulled alive from rubble in Turkiye on Thursday, but such rescues have become increasingly rare.

A 17-year-old girl was extracted from the ruins of a collapsed apartment block in Turkiye's southeastern Kahramanmaras province, broadcaster TRT Haber reported, 248 hours after the magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck in the dead of night on Feb 6.

Footage showed her being carried away on a stretcher covered with a thermal blanket while an emergency worker held an intravenous drip.

About 10 hours later, Neslihan Kilic was rescued.

"We had prepared her grave, and we asked the rescue workers to stop digging as we feared they would damage the remaining corpses under the rubble. Moments later, her voice was heard from under the ruins of the building," Kilic's brother-in-law told broadcaster CNN Turk.

Kilic's husband and two children are still missing.

The quake killed at least 38,044 people in southern Turkiye, officials said on Friday, while authorities in neighboring Syria have reported 5,800 deaths — a figure that has changed little in days.

The United Nations on Thursday appealed for more than $1 billion in funds for the Turkish relief operation, just two days after launching a $400 million appeal for Syrians.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, speaking on Thursday in his first televised comments since the quake hit, said the response to the disaster required more resources than the government had available.

Unspeakable heartache

Neither Turkiye nor Syria has said how many people are still missing.

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths, who visited Turkiye last week, said the people had "experienced unspeakable heartache", adding, "We must stand with them in their darkest hour and ensure they receive the support they need."

For families still waiting to retrieve relatives, there is growing anger over what they see as corrupt building practices and deeply flawed urban development that resulted in thousands of homes and businesses disintegrating.

Turkiye has promised to investigate anyone suspected of responsibility for the collapse of the buildings and has ordered the detention of more than 100 suspects, including developers.

Across the border in Syria, the quake slammed a region divided and devastated by 12 years of civil war. The government says the death toll in territory it controls is 1,414. More than 4,000 fatalities have been reported in the rebel-held northwest, and rescuers say nobody has been found alive there since Feb 9.

The aid effort has been hampered by the conflict. As of Thursday, 119 UN trucks have gone through the Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salam crossings from Turkiye into Northwest Syria after the earthquake, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Reuters.

Many survivors have fled the disaster zones, but some have decided to stay despite the dreadful conditions.

"We spend our days with bread, soup and meals as part of the aid sent by people. We don't have a life anymore. We are afraid," said Mustafa Akan in Adiyaman, who sleeps outdoors and stays warm by burning wood in a bucket.

                                                                                      Agencies - Xinhua

China's official rescue team, together with rescuers from Hong Kong, were greeted with a high-profile welcoming ceremony in Beijing on Friday, as they came back from intense rescue operations in Turkiye.

Those who went to the airport to receive them included Xu Jia'ai, vice-minister of emergency management, Abdulkadir Emin Onen, Turkiye's ambassador to China and Wang Linggui, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake on Feb 6, which was followed by a magnitude 7.5 temblor and hundreds of aftershocks, resulted in huge casualties in Turkiye. The disaster caused great concern to the Chinese government and people, Xu said.

Arranged by the central authorities, the 82-member Chinese official team raced against time to rush to Turkiye. The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region also sent 59 rescuers to the quake-hit nation. The two teams worked alongside each other, he said.

They achieved multiple miracles in saving lives and have completed their missions in an outstanding manner, the vice-minister added.

Before their departure from Turkiye, the team donated relief supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquakes, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management. Foodstuffs, water, hygienic materials, clothes, blankets and 12 big tents were among the donations.

A handover ceremony was held on Thursday in the camp of the team in the Antakya district, Hatay province, the worst-affected region.

"The Chinese team came from far away and helped us. Thank you very much for sharing our pain," XinhuaNews Agency quoted an unnamed officer from Turkiye's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority as saying.

China's official rescue team arrived in Turkiye on Feb 8 with four rescue dogs and over 20 metric tons of equipment, including life detectors. The team freed six survivors in a week, and also recovered 11 bodies from the rubble. In total, they searched over 700,000 square meters in their rescue operation, according to the ministry.

"We spared no efforts to search for vital signs in the rescue operation, never giving up any slim hopes," said Zhao Ming, head of the Chinese official rescue team.

Members of many civilian rescue teams also received a warm welcome when they returned home. Many people cheered and applauded as seven rescuers from the branch of Blue Sky Rescue in Baoding, Hebei province, came out of the local train station on Friday morning.

"I think this is the honor we all share for saving lives," said Bai Haiyan, one of the members of the rescue team.

Blue Sky Rescue is China's largest nongovernmental humanitarian organization. The seven-member Baoding team helped rescue three survivors from the ruins and found 43 bodies when in Turkiye.

Seven members of the Rescue Team of Ramunion, headquartered in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, arrived in Turkiye early on Feb 9, making it the first Chinese civilian rescue team to arrive in the quake-hit nation.

All the seven rescuers had returned to Hangzhou on Thursday afternoon. After their flight landed, there was applause from passengers in the flight to welcome them back home.

"Let's extend our great respect and gratitude to our heroes who have returned with a round of warm applause," a female flight attendant said.

BEIJING -- Rescue teams dispatched by the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region returned to Beijing on a chartered plane Friday afternoon, after completing their rescue missions in Turkiye, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

After arriving in the affected area on Feb 8, the Chinese rescue teams carried out search and rescue operations in the southern Turkish province of Hatay near the epicenter of the earthquake, said Zhao Ming, head of the Chinese rescue team.

The team searched and evaluated 87 buildings with a total area of over 700,000 square meters. They rescued six trapped survivors and located 11 people who had died in the disaster.

When Bai Haiyan and his companions ate at a restaurant near the airport in Istanbul, Turkiye a few days ago, a local man came to them and offered to treat them and provide them with accommodation for free after discovering they were there for rescue missions.

"He was very friendly and hospitable," Bai said, adding that things like this had happened from time to time during their 5-day stay in Turkiye, which impressed him.

"Everywhere we went in Turkiye, we met warm Turkish people like the man in the airport, " Bai recalled.

Bai is one of the seven members from the Blue Sky Rescue branch in Baoding, Hebei province. The Blue Sky Rescue is China's largest nongovernmental humanitarian organization.

Among many other rescuers, the seven members went to Turkiye right after devastating earthquakes struck Turkiye and Syria on Feb 6.

On the morning of Friday, they came back to Baoding and were warmly welcomed by citizens in the city chanting "Bravo" with thunderous applause.

"I think this is an honor we all share for saving lives," Bai said.

According to Bai, the team participated in rescue missions at 10 destroyed buildings and another 133 sites, which saved three survivors from the earthquake and found another 43 people who had died.

After they completed their missions in Turkiye, other rescue teams from China, including rescuers from Hong Kong, had also left Turkiye and successively returned to their home in places across the country, including Tianjin and Shanghai, according to media reports.

GUIYANG -- Guo Guoying, 31, has devoted herself to earthquake relief in Turkiye over the past few days.

Guo, head of a language training center in Anshun city, Southwest China's Guizhou province, has a wealth of experience working abroad and has many international friends.

Turkiye was hit hard by powerful earthquakes on Feb. 6, resulting in heavy casualties. After the earthquakes, China dispatched multiple search and rescue teams to provide humanitarian aid to earthquake-stricken areas in Turkiye.

The day after the two earthquakes happened, Guo received a request from a friend who joined the rescue effort in Turkiye and asked whether she knew any Chinese people there who could provide support in communication.

"I'm engaged in language training and have some overseas friends. I'm eager to do what I can to help people in need," said Guo, who soon created a WeChat group and invited volunteers who could help bridge the language gap.

Over 100 volunteers with different linguistic backgrounds, such as Chinese, English and Turkish, joined the group and participated in the relief effort.

For each volunteer recruited, Guo registers their name, nationality, language, residence and the amount of time they can spend with the teams.

Panda Rush, a volunteer from Southwest China's Sichuan province who declined to give his real name, has previously experienced two earthquakes. He helped Guo collect the information of newcomers to the group.

The volunteer said that although he was poor in Turkish and was unable to help with interpretation, he still wanted to join the group and do what he could.

Guo was pleasantly surprised to know Zhang Huiying, who lent a helping hand in Turkiye. The two worked together to bridge the communication gap between Chinese search and rescue teams and those in need.

Guo takes charge of recruiting volunteers and arranges them according to the needs of the search and rescue teams. Meanwhile, Zhang coordinates volunteers to help the teams get to the affected areas, apply for local mobile phone cards and informs them of the latest developments regarding the earthquakes.

Due to the time difference between China and Turkiye, the two take turns staying awake to make sure that any questions asked on WeChat are promptly answered.

"A minute can help save a life," said Guo.

On Feb 9, the first batch of 16 volunteers from the group set out to assist the Chinese teams for rescue. Twelve of them are from Turkiye, and the other four are Chinese international students.

In addition to coordinating with the teams, Zhang was also involved in first-line rescue. In the southern province of Hatay, she traveled to the countryside with the search and rescue teams to distribute clothes, food and other supplies, and she even donated blood.

At present, some Chinese search and rescue teams have completed their mission in Turkiye, and the volunteers are now assisting with the allocation of relief supplies.

Guo said that she is now trying to provide help in the form of psychological counseling for the volunteers, and will keep in touch with them.

BEIJING -- China has deployed several satellites to capture images of the quake-hit areas in Turkiye, helping the country to analyze the disaster situation and allocate relief resources more effectively, according to the industry newspaper China Space News.

Using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images provided by China's L-SAR 01, researchers accurately portrayed the extent of the damage caused by the earthquakes and provided important data support for post-earthquake rescue efforts in Turkiye, said the newspaper.

China's L-SAR 01 is a satellite group composed of two satellites equipped with L-band SAR, namely the L-SAR 01A and the L-SAR 01B. Both satellites were launched last year, and were tasked with providing data to support land resource management, mapping, forestry, and disaster prevention and relief.

"SAR" refers to a microwave-imaging radar system that emits electromagnetic waves to Earth and receives echoes. It can take high-definition microwave pictures of the land surface.

Following the twin earthquakes that rocked Turkiye and Syria on Feb. 6, Chinese researchers acquired post-earthquake SAR images from L-SAR 01 on Feb. 10. After differential interference processing with the pre-earthquake SAR images, they obtained the isoseismic deformation field of the two strong earthquakes, the newspaper noted.

Moreover, after the massive earthquakes, satellite images taken by China's Gaojing-1 04 satellite on Feb 8 showed that a fire broke out in Iskenderun port in southern Turkiye and that some of the port's containers collapsed, according to the newspaper.

"The satellite images helped people analyze the situation in quake-affected areas and carry out rescue work," it said.

The newspaper also pointed out in its microblog that more than 10 civil and commercial satellites, including Gaofen-1 02/03, Gaofen-2, and Gaofen-3 01/03 were deployed to capture images of the quake-hit areas in Turkiye.

By Feb 10, a total of 67 remote sensing images were obtained, including 34 optical images and 33 SAR images, it added.

According to the newspaper, analysis results of the satellite image data were sent to the Chinese international rescue team in Turkiye, and were also provided to the Turkish government through the International Charter Space and Major Disasters.

In addition, some academic institutions in China are also analyzing data from Chinese satellites to assist the relief efforts. A research team from Wuhan University used China's high-resolution satellites to carry out the high-precision monitoring of lights in affected areas at night, providing data to the United Nations Satellite Centre to aid relief work.

The earth science satellite SDGSAT-1, developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, provided pre-disaster data for researchers to compare with post-disaster conditions.

The commercial space telescope Yangwang-1, developed by Origin Space Technology Co., Ltd., and the micro-nano satellite QMX-1, developed by Wuhan University, have also been deployed.

UNITED NATIONS - The world body is continuing its cross-border aid delivery into Northwest Syria in the aftermath of the massive earthquakes, said a UN spokesman on Thursday.

Twenty-two trucks carrying aid from the World Food Programme and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) crossed the Bab Al-Hawa crossing from Turkiye, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Two additional trucks carrying tents provided by the UNHCR crossed the Bab Al-Salam crossing. In Northwest Syria, shelter needs are the top priority among displaced people, he said.

The Bab Al-Hawa crossing point was authorized by the UN Security Council for cross-border aid delivery into Northwest Syria.

After the Feb. 6 earthquakes, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad decided to open the two crossing points of Bab Al-Salam and Al Ra'ee from Türkiye to Northwest Syria for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid.

Dujarric said many homes had collapsed in the aftermath of the earthquakes. As of Tuesday, more than 8,900 buildings had been destroyed or damaged in Northwest Syria, leaving 11,000 people homeless.

Other priorities, obviously, in addition to shelter needs and food, are cash assistance and supplies to cope with the harsh winter weather conditions, he said.