Rescue workers toiled overnight to find survivors more than 72 hours after a massive earthquake tore through southern Turkey and neighbouring Syria, killing more than 15,300 people.
Responders have been racing to find people buried in the rubble of thousands of collapsed buildings, as the window of survival narrows and temperatures drop below freezing.
In the badly hit Turkish province of Hatay, an international team pulled a girl and her father out of a pancaked apartment block just before 7am local time on Thursday, with news channels broadcasting the rescue live.
An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck Turkey near the Syrian border at 4.17am on Monday and was followed within hours by a 7.5-magnitude temblor, as well as more than 100 aftershocks, bringing down structures that were not built to withstand even small quakes.
The death toll in Turkey has reached 12,391 people with nearly 63,000 injured, the disaster-relief agency said. In Syria, at least 2,950 people have died, according to the government and the volunteer White Helmets rescuers in opposition-held areas.
The path of destruction in Turkey extends over more than 500km and 10 provinces, severely complicating the rescue effort. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, acknowledged shortcomings in the initial rescue operation on Wednesday.
Relatives of trapped victims are using social media in a desperate bid to direct rescue teams and equipment to places where people are trapped. But Twitter was offline in Turkey for more than seven hours on Wednesday, though it was accessible again early on Thursday.
The government has not said whether it blocked Twitter. Phone calls to the state internet watchdog on Wednesday were not answered.
The transport minister, Ömer Fatih Sayan, warned Twitter executives in a video call on Wednesday that the website would be held responsible for any spread of disinformation, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The San Francisco-based social media company said it would “co-operate fully” with Turkish authorities.
Erdoğan’s government has impeded access to Twitter and other platforms during previous natural disasters and after terror attacks. On Wednesday the president urged people to rely only on official statements for information about the disaster and relief efforts.
