Turkey-Syria earthquake highlights: Syria approves international aid delivery to rebel-held areas

As many as 5.3 million people in Syria may have been left homeless by the earthquake," the Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sivanka Dhanapala, told a press briefing.

"We are also leading in the protection sector here. Throughout Syria, we have a network of community centres, satellite centres, outreach volunteers, and this helps us reach vulnerable populations. We've set up hotlines for all sorts of protection-related issues, which we use," he added. (ANI)

Rescue crews saved a 10-day-old baby and his mother trapped in the ruins of a building in Turkey on Friday and dug several people out from other sites as President Tayyip Erdogan said authorities should have reacted faster to this week's huge earthquake, reports Reuters.

In the Samandag district of Turkey, rescuers crouched under concrete slabs and whispering "Inshallah" (God willing), carefully reached into the rubble and picked out the 10-day-old newborn. His eyes wide open, baby Yagiz Ulas was wrapped in a thermal blanket and carried to a field hospital. Emergency workers also took away his mother, dazed and pale but conscious on a stretcher, as per the report.

Rebuilding costs in Turkey could be between $3 billion and $5 billion, or possibly more, according to an estimate by the Bank of America, as reported by Bloomberg.

Under Operation Dost, India sent 841 cartons of medicines, protection safety tools, and diagnostics to quake-hit Turkey and Syria, according to official sources on Friday.

The Syrian government said on Friday it had approved the delivery of humanitarian aid to areas outside its control in the quake-hit rebel-held northwest of the country, AFP reported.

UN urges 'immediate ceasefire' in Syria to facilitate quake aid, reports AFP.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted for the first time Friday that his government's search and rescue effort from this week's devastating earthquake was not going as quickly as hoped.

Erdogan has faced criticism from the quake's survivors about an insufficient number of rescuers and humanitarian aid being delivered in the first days of Turkey's biggest disaster in nearly a century.

Rescuers pulled a woman alive out of the rubble of a collapsed building in Turkey on Friday, prompting cheers from onlookers about 104 hours after she was buried by the huge earthquake that wrought death and destruction across the region.

Turkey is discussing re-opening a border crossing into Syrian government territory, a Turkish official said on Friday, enabling earthquake aid to be sent directly to areas under President Bashar al-Assad's control after a decade of enmity, Reuters reported.

After a deadly earthquake hit Turkey and Syria on Monday, the Turkish government has postponed a natural gas summit due to be held on February 14-15 until March 22, Reuters reported.

When rescuers saved a dog named Pamuk from the rubble of a collapsed building in Hatay; captured by AFP photographer Gurkan Ozturk.

Kurdish militant group PKK or Kurdistan Workers' Party says suspending 'actions' after Turkey quake, reports AFP

Turkey is trying to get a green light from Russia to use new border crossings for delivering aid to earthquake survivors in northwest Syria, reported Bloomberg citing officials. Ankara is in talks with Moscow to allow a flow of international supplies through Turkish border crossings Oncupinar and Cobanbey in Kilis province, in addition to an existing one further west, the officials said.

Turkish donors are ordering hundreds of containers for delivery to areas struck by two massive earthquakes, as the disaster forced tens of thousands of people to stay outside their homes in freezing cold, as per a Bloomberg report.

Bitter cold hampered search efforts in both Turkey and Syria, but more than 80 hours after the disaster struck, 16-year-old Melda Adtas was found alive in the southern Turkish city of Antakya. Read more

Scores of people were seen crying and praying as the quake survivors began to bury the dead at newly opened graves in Pazarcik, Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing mounting criticism from earthquake survivors and opposition parties over the country’s poor construction record and what they say has been an inadequate response to one of its worst natural disasters. Critics say the government’s delay in sending cranes and other heavy machinery to lift slabs of concrete missed a critical window of opportunity to save people, according to a Bloomberg report.

An earthquake of magnitude 4.6 on the Richter scale occurred 19 km SW of Malatya in Turkey, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) announced in a post on Twitter.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed holding a crunch election on May 14 that could keep his Islamic-rooted government in power until 2028. The earthquake that killed more than 21,000 people across Turkey and Syria came at one of the most politically sensitive moments of Erdogan's two-decade rule. Whether that vote can now go ahead as planned remains to be seen, reported AFP.

A 20-year-old student, Boran Kubat, was rescued from under the debris of an apartment building in eastern Turkey after sharing his location in a video appeal on WhatsApp. Read more

Rescuers from Ukrainian emergency services set up a "tent city" in Antakya, Turkey, to begin search and rescue operations, reported AFP

Rescuers, who went into a hole in an apartment block turned into a pile of concrete and steel pancakes with blankets and a pillow, came out again with a body bag. The scene has been repeated countless times in wpr, a town of 40,000 people, where officials would not give a death toll but said there were definitely hundreds of fatalities. Read more

Taking to his official Twitter handle, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus informed about his visit to Syria and stated that WHO has been supporting essential health care in earthquake-affected regions.

The World Bank will provide Turkey $1.78 billion in assistance for relief and recovery work, with immediate assistance of $780 million through two existing projects in the country to rebuild basic municipal-level infrastructure. It’s also preparing an extra $1 billion in operations to support people affected. Read more

The United States will provide $85 million in initial earthquake aid to Turkey and Syria. The relief will include medicine, food and shelter along with other supplies, President Joe Biden announced Thursday. Read more