Turkey-Syria quake LIVE | Death toll in Turkey and Syria reaches over 23,000

Following Monday's earthquakes that shook Turkey, the volunteer group Syria Civil Defense, commonly known as the White Helmets, said that its search and rescue efforts for survivors in rebel-controlled regions in the north and northwest are completed.

The number of fatalities from the earthquakes that occurred this week in Turkey and Syria has increased to 23,726. According to Turkey's Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, the dead toll has increased to at least 20,213 with 80,052 additional people reporting injuries. 3,384 people have died in Syria, including 2,166 in rebel-held northwest regions, according to the White Helmets civil defence organisation, and 1,347 in areas under government control, according to Syrian official media.
 

Following the devastating earthquake, the United States is now looking to ramp up aid to Turkey and Syria, the White House said reporters on Friday. A disaster assistance and response team from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has already been sent to Turkey, according to John Kirby, the White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications.
 

Although the Syrian government has stated that it will let assistance delivery to regions of the nation controlled by rebels, the director of a UN relief agency tells CNN that officials have not provided any details. According to António Vitorino, the director-general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), no specific locations or hours for entry into the affected areas have been provided to the organisation, which has been working to assist those affected by the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria.

In a Reuters video, a local rescue squad is seen rescuing Strawberry, a cat that belongs to Kerem Cetin, a university student, from the debris in Hatay, Turkey.

Before being extricated from the rubble, the earthquake sufferer urged them to save his cat, who was averse to even being briefly separated from his master.

State media said on Friday that the Syrian government has allowed the distribution of humanitarian supplies across the frontlines of the nation's 12-year civil conflict and added that relief would reach those in need with the assistance of the UN, the Syrian Red Crescent, and the international Red Cross.

State media said, according to a Reuters report that the government had also designated the cities of Lattakia, Hama, Aleppo, and Idlib—the ones most severely damaged by Monday's catastrophic earthquake—as disaster zones and would establish a fund to rehabilitate them.

In order to facilitate rescue efforts following the enormous earthquake that devastated areas of Syria and southeast Turkey, Kurdish militants from the banned PKK organisation announced a temporary halt to fighting. Ankara and its key Western allies have designated the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a terrorist organisation for carrying out a vicious conflict that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths since 1984.

The death toll in Turkey has risen to to 19,388, according to Guardian reports that claimed 77,711 people have been injured. The number of deaths in neighbouring Syria has been put at 3,377, giving a combined death toll of 22,765.

Authorities reported on Friday (February 10)  that a number of whales had washed up dead on Cyprus' northern shores, presumably as a result of this week's powerful earthquakes in Cyprus' neighbouring countries of Turkey and Syria, as reported by the Guardian.

According to the Cyprus department of fisheries and marine research, a pod of four beaked whales was discovered beached on Thursday, while six were discovered dead on Friday (February 10). 

During a visit to the Syrian city of Aleppo, Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), appealed for "complete humanitarian access" to all impacted areas.

The head of the Syrian White Helmets emergency response group has accused the UN of failing to send the required humanitarian aid to rebel-held areas of the country devastated by a major earthquake and its aftershocks.

Raed Al Saleh, who leads the group, called the UN’s response “catastrophic” and said the body should “apologise to the Syrian people for the lack of help it provided”.

A four-year-old girl has been pulled from quake rubble alive in Kahramanmaras, Turkey

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited the Aleppo University Hospital to check on the victims of the devastating quake, the presidency said on Friday, his first reported trip to an earthquake-hit area. The presidency shared images of Assad and his wife visiting people who were injured.

A young boy and his mother were rescued in Diyarbakir on Friday after spending 103 hours trapped under rubble. 

The death toll in the country has risen to 18,342, with the number of people injured rising to 74,242, Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said on Friday.

There have also been 1,509 aftershocks, it added.

Outlawed Kurdish militants are temporarily suspending "operations" in Turkey following the massive quake in the country and Syria, a PKK leader said.

"Stop operations in Turkey, in the cities. We have decided to not conduct any operation as long as the Turkish state does not attack," leader Cemil Bayik was quoted as saying late Thursday by news agency ANF. 

Stories of hope continue to emerge from Turkey where thousands of people have died following a devastating earthquake. Now, a 10-day-old baby and his mother has been rescued from under the rubble in Turkey. 

Rescue teams and supplies from across Arab countries, Iran and Armenia have reached Syria. The teams will join the search and rescue efforts in the quake-stricken country. Arriving from Tunisia, Oman, Iran, Armenia and the UAE, several airplanes landed in Damascus and Aleppo airports carrying aid supplies.

A 72-man team from Australia left for Turkey on Friday to help with search and rescue efforts following the devastating earthquake. The team is specially trained in search and rescue efforts required after disasters, as well as using equipment such as cameras and seismic-listening devices. They will touch down in Turkey over the weekend.

Rescuers dug through rubble with bare hands to save two girls from under the rubble of a collapsed building in northern Syria on Wednesday. Dramatic footage provided by the White Helmets showed volunteers clawing through the wreckage of a collapsed structure in Jandaris to pull the two girls out. One of the girls, with her face covered with dust, was carried outside.

The United States said on Thursday (February 9) that it would provide $85 million in urgent humanitarian to earthquake-ravaged Turkey and Syria. The announcement (to provide the aid) was made by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

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