Turkey, February 11: The Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll crossed 24,000.
The confirmed death toll from the deadliest quake in the region in two decades stood at more than 24,000 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria four days after it hit.
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The stench of death hung over Turkey's eastern city of Kahramanmaras -- the epicentre of the first 7.8-magnitude tremor that upturned millions of lives in the pre-dawn hours of Monday. It is located in a remote region filled with people already displaced by war, reported France24.
Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said authorities should have reacted faster to this week's huge earthquake.
Erdogan is standing for re-election in a vote scheduled for May 14 and his opponents have seized upon the issue to attack him. The election may now be postponed due to the disaster.
Hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in bleak winter conditions and leaders in both countries have faced questions about their response, sources reported.
Rescuers, including teams from dozens of countries, toiled night and day in the ruins of thousands of wrecked buildings to find buried survivors. In freezing temperatures, they regularly called for silence as they listened for any sound of life from mangled concrete mounds.
The United Nations warned that at least 870,000 people urgently needed hot meals across Turkey and Syria. In Syria alone, up to 5.3 million people may have been made homeless.
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