Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll tops 19,000

Rescue teams have continued searching for survivors buried in the rubble of thousands of buildings destroyed in Turkey and Syria by disastrous earthquakes that killed more than 19,000.

The majority of confirmed deaths have been in Turkey, with officials saying at least 16,000 had been killed. More than 3,000 were killed and more than 5,000 were injured in Syria. 

More than 63,000 people were also injured in Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. 

Erdogan on Wednesday visited a "tent city" in Kahramanmaras, where people forced from their homes are living.  He conceded "shortcomings" but vowed that no one would "be left in the streets."

Turkey now has tens of thousands of aid personnel in the quake zone, and search teams from about thirty countries have joined them. But with the damage so widespread, many are still waiting for help. And an unknown number of people are still trapped under the rubble.

The sprawling scale of the disaster that flattened thousands of buildings has swamped relief operations already hampered by freezing weather, AFP reported.

Survivors have been left to scramble for food and shelter -- and in some cases watch helplessly as their relatives called for rescue, and eventually went silent under the debris.

Still, searchers kept pulling survivors from the debris three days after the 7.8 magnitude quake that is already one of the deadliest this century, even as the death toll continues to rise.

The window for rescuers to find survivors is narrowing as the effort nears the 72-hour mark that disaster experts consider the most likely period to save lives, according to AFP.

Yet on Wednesday, rescuers pulled children from under a collapsed building in the hard-hit Turkish Province of Hatay, where whole stretches of towns have been leveled.

"All of a sudden we heard voices and thanks to the excavator... immediately we heard the voices of three people at the same time," said rescuer Alperen Cetinkaya.

"We are expecting more of them... the chances of getting people out of here alive are very high," he added.

Due to the scale of the damage and the lack of help coming to certain areas, survivors said they felt alone in responding to the disaster.

"Even the buildings that haven't collapsed were severely damaged. There are now more people under the rubble than those above it," a resident named Hassan, who did not provide his full name, said in the rebel-held town of Jindayris.

"There are around 400-500 people trapped under each collapsed building, with only 10 people trying to pull them out. And there is no machinery," he added.

ME