Turkey-Syria quake toll tops 6,200 as rescuers battle cold

SANLIURFA, AFP: Rescuers in Turkey and Syria battled frigid cold Tuesday in a race against time to find survivors under buildings flattened by an earthquake that killed more than 6,200 people.

Tremors that inflicted more suffering on a border area, already plagued by conflict, left people on the streets burning debris to try to stay warm as international aid began to arrive.

But some extraordinary survival tales have emerged, including a new-born baby pulled alive from rubble in Syria, still tied by her umbilical cord to her mother who died in Monday’s quake.

“We heard a voice while we were digging,” Khalil al-Suwadi, a relative, told AFP. 

“We cleared the dust and found the baby with the umbilical cord (intact) so we cut it and my cousin took her to hospital.” 

The infant is the sole survivor of her immediate family, the rest of whom were killed in the rebel-held town of Jindayris.

The 7.8-magnitude quake struck Monday as people slept, flattening thousands of structures, trapping an unknown number of people and potentially impacting millions.

Whole rows of buildings collapsed, leaving some of the heaviest devastation near the quake’s epicentre between the Turkish cities of Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras.

The destruction led to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declaring Tuesday a three-month state of emergency in 10 south-eastern provinces.

Dozens of nations like the United States, China and the Gulf States have pledged to help, and search teams as well as relief supplies have begun to arrive by airplane.

Yet people in some of the hardest-hit areas said they felt like they had been left to fend for themselves.

The latest toll showed 4,544 people killed in Turkey and 1,712 in Syria, for a combined total of 6,256 fatalities.

There are fears that the toll will rise inexorably, with WHO officials estimating up to 20,000 may have died.