Next day crucial for saving many lives in Turkey, Syria

Survivors under the rubble after Monday's earthquake in Turkey and Syria face a stark choice – risk being crushed inside or freezing cold outside – with rescue options narrowing fast in the next 24 hours, reports BBC.

New buildings keep collapsing every now and then and the crisis is more acute in war-torn Syria where more than four million people were already relying on humanitarian assistance.

Ahmed al-Khatib, an Al Jazeera TV producer, was sheltering with his family in Gaziantep in Turkey Tuesday.

"A lot of people are standing outside on the streets, they don't feel safe, even inside the surviving buildings. They are standing outside in the snow. It's below zero right now. It's too cold. I'm talking to you, and I am shaking," he told reporters from Al Jazeera.

The 7.8 magnitude quake was the strongest to hit the Turkey-Syria border region in the last 100 years alongside the one that struck in 1939 killing over 30,000 people, CNN reported citing United States Geological Survey data.

To reduce the death toll this time, with 5,100 crossed already, rescue workers have to work really fast in the next 24 hours, BBC reported quoting Dr Carmen Solana, reader in volcanology and risk communication at the University of Portsmouth, UK.

Furthermore, this was a region where there had not been a major earthquake for more than 200 years or any warning signs, so the level of preparedness would be less than for a region which was more used to dealing with tremors.

Residents of Turkey's Hatay province, where many people remain trapped under rubble, say they have had little help since Monday's earthquakes – potentially highlighting the lack of preparations among rescue teams to tackle a quake of such magnitude.

Weeping in the rain, a resident who gave his name as Deniz wrung his hands in despair.

"They're making noises but nobody is coming," he said. "We're devastated, we're devastated. My God … They're calling out. They're saying, 'Save us,' but we can't save them. How are we going to save them? There has been nobody since the morning."

In the devastated Turkish city of Adana, reporters found Nurten sits and weeps coddled in a blanket in the freezing cold.

Her adult daughter, Senay, was on the second floor of the collapsed building. As of Tuesday night, Nurten waited there all day and all night, but no news came.

"When my daughter is lying in the cold, how can I lie down in a warm bed?" she asks.

"My daughter never liked the cold, oh God. She is under the earth. My heart is burning," she cries.

"So far, we haven't seen much help in our area, as we don't have as many destroyed and damaged buildings. But we've seen many utility workers — especially from the electricity and gas companies — running to put out the fires which we saw after the second earthquake," Ahmed al-Khatib of Al Jazeera said.

Gaziantep goes from a refuge to a site of devastation

Kasem al-Abrash's mind immediately went back to his hometown of Idlib in northern Syria when he felt tremors below his feet, reports Al Jazeera. Gaziantep in Turkey was supposed to be a safe recluse for him after he left behind the civil war's devastations in Syria in 2020.

However, on Monday morning, like millions of people across southern Turkey and northern Syria, al-Abrash woke up to the heavy shakes of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which hit the wider region and left death and devastation in its wake.

"I realised, oh no, I'm actually supposed to be in a safe space, in Turkey," al-Abrash said.

When 21-year-old law student Karina Horlach woke up in the early hours of the morning to her bed heavily shaking, she had flashbacks from the last time she was in Ukraine.

"It's February, and exactly one year ago I was woken up by that same bed shaking," Horlach told Al Jazeera, with panic in her voice. "But then, I realised I wasn't in Ukraine. It took me some time to understand what was going on."

Horlach is enrolled in an Erasmus student programme in Gaziantep.

She was given the opportunity to escape from the war in her own country and settle as a temporary refugee in a supposedly safer environment.

She never expected to get post-traumatic memories of Kharkiv, her hometown, in the city that has sheltered her for the past six months.

"I thought I was experiencing an air strike again," Horlach said. "It gave me flashbacks of home."