The death toll from the Turkey-Syria earthquakes has passed 15,800.
Reporting from Kahramanmaras as rescue operations continue for a fourth day, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said, “I am in front of the rubble of a collapsed building. Unfortunately, no one came out alive last night.”
“You can see some of those bodies that are pulled out are completely burned,” Serdar said, adding that it was not clear what caused the blaze.
Serdar said there were at least 60 people inside the hotel building when the first earthquake hit and most of them were still stuck under the rubble.
People from around the Gaziantep region in southeastern Turkey have come to the eponymous city looking for temporary shelter after Monday’s devastating earthquakes, according to Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker.
“The area is full of cars. A lot of these people have come from the epicentre, put their blankets and everything in [their cars],” she reported from Gaziantep. “They don’t want to go back to their homes because they are structurally damaged, they are still afraid because there are still a lot of aftershocks.”
“There is a massive number of people, and they are homeless.”
Yet, amid the devastation, rescue workers are still finding some people alive, she said. “This morning, they managed to pull two people out of the rubble. It’s extraordinary … in this incredible cold.”
Two sources told Reuters news agency that a first aid convoy is on its way towards the Turkish border to enter areas in opposition-controlled northwestern Syria.
The hope is for the convoy, which includes six trucks, to cross on Thursday, one of the sources said.
Amid fading hopes of finding survivors amid the rubble, rescue workers pulled a baby alive from the debris in the Turkish city of Hatay, nearly 68 hours after the earthquakes that have devastated Turkey and Syria.
Rescuers say that the baby, named Helen, is in good health and under the supervision of medical units.
Here is the moment when they rescued her.
The highway between the southern Turkish cities of Iskenderun and Antakya has been choked with an endless stream of vehicles rushing to reach the areas among the worst hit by the disastrous magnitude 7.8 earthquake and its aftershocks that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday.
Volunteers headed to the cities, bringing with them supplies and hoping to assist earthquake survivors and the families of victims.
In Iskenderun on the Mediterranean coast, expansive plumes of dark smoke emanated from a massive fire raging on the city’s port, which continued well into the night on Tuesday.
