Newborn rescued from rubble in Syria after earthquake

Residents in a northwest Syrian town discovered a crying infant whose mother appears to have given birth to her while buried underneath the rubble of a five-storey apartment building levelled by this week's devastating earthquake, relatives and a doctor said Tuesday.

The newborn girl was found buried under the debris with her umbilical cord still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was found dead, they said.

The baby was the only member of her family to survive from the building collapse Monday in the small town of Jinderis, next to the Turkish border, Ramadan Sleiman, a relative, told The Associated Press.

The rescuers found the baby Monday afternoon, more than 10 hours after the quake struck. A female neighbour cut the cord, and she and others rushed with the baby to a children's hospital in the nearby town of Afrin, where she has been kept in an incubator, said the physician treating the baby, Dr. Hani Maarouf.

The baby's body temperature had fallen to 35 C and she had bruises, including a large one on her back, but she is in stable condition, he said.

Maarouf said he believed the baby had been born about three hours before being found, given the amount her temperature had dropped.

Jinderis, located in the rebel-held enclave of northwest Syria, was hard hit in the quake, with multiple buildings that collapsed. The town saw another dramatic rescue Monday evening, when a toddler was pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building.

Video from the White Helmets, the emergency service in the region, shows a rescuer digging through crushed concrete amid twisted metal until the little girl, named Nour, appeared.

The girl, still half buried, looks up dazedly as they tell her, "Dad is here, don't be scared. Talk to your dad, talk."

A rescuer cradled her head in his hands and tenderly wiped dust from around her eyes before she was pulled out.

Death toll rises

Monday's magnitude 7.8 quake and a cascade of strong aftershocks cut a swath of destruction that stretched hundreds of kilometres across southeastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria. The shaking toppled thousands of buildings and heaped more misery on a region wracked by Syria's 12-year civil war and refugee crisis. One temblor that followed the first registered at magnitude 7.5, powerful in its own right.

Search teams and aid poured into Turkey and Syria on Tuesday as rescuers working in freezing temperatures and sometimes using their bare hands dug through the remains of buildings flattened by a powerful earthquake. The death toll soared above 7,200 and was still expected to rise.

But with the damage spread over a wide area, the massive relief operation often struggled to reach devastated towns, and voices that had been crying out from the rubble fell silent.

WATCH |Small child discovered under rubble and then freed:

A joyous moment as Syrian child rescued from deep rubble

2 years ago

Duration 0:37

A young Syrian girl was rescued Tuesday from deep debris in Jindires, Syria, after the building she was in collapsed.

More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the debris in Turkey alone, and some 380,000 have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, said Turkish Vice-President Fuat Oktay.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 13 million of the country's 85 million people were affected, and he declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. Turkey was already grappling with an economic downturn ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections in May.

Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergencies officer with the World Health Organization, said up to 23 million people could be affected in the entire quake-hit area, calling it a "crisis on top of multiple crises."

Teams from nearly 30 countries headed for Turkey or Syria. As promises of help flooded in, Turkey sought to accelerate the effort by allowing only vehicles carrying aid to enter the worst-hit provinces of Kahramanmaras, Adiyaman and Hatay.

The United Nations said it was "exploring all avenues" to get supplies to rebel-held northwestern Syria.

Turkey's emergency management agency said the total number of deaths in the country had passed 5,400, with over 31,000 people injured.

The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed to over 800, with some 1,400 injured, according to the Health Ministry. At least 1,000 people have died in the rebel-held northwest, according to the White Helmets, with more than 2,300 injured.

The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.