The confirmed death toll across the two countries has soared above 4,300 after a swarm of strong tremors near the Turkey-Syria border — the largest of which measured at a massive 7.8-magnitude.
The earthquakes continued Tuesday, with the Euro-Med Seismological Centre reporting a series of smaller tremors in the pre-dawn hours.
At least 17 earthquakes have hit the region in just over 24 hours, the center said.
Turkish and Syrian disaster response teams report over 5,600 buildings have been flattened across several cities, including many multi-story apartment blocks that were filled with sleeping residents when the first quake struck.
In the city of Kahramanmaras in southeastern Turkey, eyewitnesses struggled to comprehend the scale of the disaster.
“We thought it was the apocalypse,” said Melisa Salman, a 23-year-old reporter. “That was the first time we have ever experienced anything like that.”
Turkey’s relief agency AFAD on Tuesday said there were now 2,921 deaths in that country alone, bringing the confirmed tally including Syria to 4,365.
There are fears the toll will rise far further, with World Health Organization officials estimating up to 20,000 may have died.
In Gaziantep, a Turkish city home to countless refugees from Syria’s decade-old civil war, rescuers picking through the rubble screamed, cried and clamored for safety as another building collapsed near them without warning.
The initial earthquake was so large it was felt as far away as Greenland.
A woman is rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building in southeastern province of Sanliurfa after 22 hours https://t.co/9XuWtuDWGi pic.twitter.com/A7kpzGEkhd
— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) February 7, 2023
The devastation has sparked a global response.
Dozens of nations from Ukraine to New Zealand have vowed to send help, although freezing rain and sub-zero temperatures have slowed the response. An Israeli emergency response team took off for Turkey on Monday night.
In the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa, rescuers were working into the night to try to pull survivors from the wreckage of a seven-story building that had collapsed.
“There is a family I know under the rubble,” said 20-year-old Syrian student Omer El Cuneyd.
“Until 11:00 a.m. or noon, my friend was still answering the phone. But she no longer answers. She is down there,” Cuneyd said.
Despite freezing temperatures outside, terrified residents spent the night on the streets, huddling around fires for warmth.
Mustafa Koyuncu packed his wife and their five children into their car, too scared to move.
“We can’t go home,” the 55-year-old told AFP. “Everyone is afraid.”
Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake’s epicenter between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, where entire city blocks lay in ruins under gathering snow.