Turkey News

Hope of finding survivors is dwindling as the death toll tops 21,500 in Turkey and Syria.   Hikmet Yigitbas, 30, is rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building 101 hours after magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes hit Turkey's Hatay [Sergen Sezgin/Anadolu Agency]Rescue workers are digging into the rubble for a fifth consecutive day to find more survivors of the devastating earthquakes that have killed tens of thousands of people and swept away entire cities in Turkey and Syria this week. Operations continued on Friday, but hopes of finding people alive are fading away. “This collapsed building has been a graveyard,” said Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Kahramanmaras, a Turkish city close to the epicentre of Monday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake. A second magnitude 7.6 quake followed a few hours later amid hundreds of aftershocks. “Dozens of people have been taken out [of the rubble], but all were dead,” Serdar said.  READ MORE: How much is politics hamperin...

Key Points The death toll from Monday’s quakes in Turkey and Syria passed 20,000 on Thursday across both countries. Fearful of another earthquake, some chose to stay out in the open, avoiding buildings that appeared intact and choosing instead to brave the sub-zero temperatures. watch now VIDEO 01:00 Death toll in earthquake in Turkey and Syria rises to more than 20,000 Editor’s note: Graphic content. The following article contains photos of civilian casualties and injured children. ADIYAMAN, Turkey — As the temperatures plunged, anger was growing in  Turkey  over the government’s response to  two massive earthquakes  earlier this week. On Thursday, the number of those killed by the tremors in Turkey and neighboring Syria passed 20,000. With their homes destroyed, thousands spent a freezing Wednesday night amid the debris in streets of Adiyaman, huddled around small fires and with little shelter. Electricity and water were nonexistent in the southern city. New...

Members of rescue teams work to free survivors from a heavily damaged building in Belen Town of Iskenderun City, in southern Turkey's Hatay province, on February 9. (Imaginechina/AP) Earthquake survivors in Turkey's hard-hit coastal city of Iskenderun say they are losing hope of finding those still missing. Server Onen said he had spent days searching for his friend under the wreckage of an apartment building in the southern city. “The first day I was really hopeful but this is the fourth day, I am getting out of hope,” he told CNN. Others, like Suheyl Sumbultepe, have been forced to accept their loved ones are gone. Sumbultepe, who told CNN he saw his mother’s leg, said, “I’m not able to reach her. She is there. I see her but I cannot touch her. I understand my mother is dead. I am trying to get my mother.”  “Our government helps but it’s not enough, obviously. So we are trying to get our people by our own,” he said. “We need you. We need everyone who can come and hel...