With hopes of finding survivors lost, rescuers worked through the night in Turkey and Syria searching for signs of life in the wreckage of thousands of buildings that collapsed in a catastrophic earthquake. The death toll surpassed 11,000 people on Wednesday, making it the deadliest in more than a decade.
Amid calls for the Turkish government to send more aid to the disaster zone, the country's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan toured the "tent city" of Kahramanmaras where those forced from their homes are living. Acknowledging shortcomings in the immediate response to the tragedy, he promised that no one "will be left on the streets."
Rescuers from more than two dozen countries joined tens of thousands of local troops as the country began to receive pledged aid. But the scale of the destruction caused by the devastating 7.8 magnitude quake and its powerful aftershocks was so immense and widespread, reaching even areas isolated by the war in Syria, that many were still waiting for help.
In addition it is believed that of the trapped victims many may have frozen to death as thermometers reached a negative minus 6 degrees Celsius.
As concern grows for those still trapped, Polish rescuers deployed to Turkey said they had pulled nine people alive from the rubble, including parents with children and a 13-year-old girl in the town of Besni.
While noting that cold temperatures were working against them, two firefighters told Polish television station TVN24 that the fact that, as the quake occurred at dawn, people were trapped in bed under blankets could help.