TOTAL DEVASTATION

TURKEY, SYRIA HARDEST HIT, MANY FEARED TRAPPED IN RUBBLE

Powerful earthquakes rocked swaths of Turkey and neighbouring Syria Monday, killing thousands as they toppled buildings and trapped people under mounds of rubble. Authorities fear the death toll will rise as rescuers continue to search for survivors.

Apowerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked wide swaths of Turkey and neighbouring Syria on Monday, killing more than 2,800 people and injuring thousands more as it toppled scores of buildings and trapped residents under mounds of rubble.

Authorities feared the death toll would keep climbing as rescuers searched through tangles of metal and concrete for survivors in a region beset by Syria's 12-year civil war and a refugee crisis.

Residents jolted out of sleep by the pre-dawn quake rushed outside in the rain and snow to escape falling debris, while those who were trapped cried for help. Throughout the day, major aftershocks rattled the region, including a second quake nearly as strong as the initial one. After night fell, workers were still sawing away slabs and pulling out bodies as desperate families waited for news on trapped loved ones.

“My grandson is 11/2 years old. Please help them, please. We can't hear them or get any news from them since morning. Please, they were on the 12th floor,” Imran Bahur wept by her destroyed apartment building in the Turkish city of Adana. Her daughter and family were still not found.

Tens of thousands who were left homeless in Turkey and Syria faced a night in the cold. In Turkey's Gaziantep, a provincial capital about 33 kilometres from the epicentre, people took refuge in shopping malls, stadiums and community centres. Mosques around the region were opened to provide shelter.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared seven days of national mourning.

The quake, which was centred on Turkey's southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo.

The quake piled more misery on a region that has seen tremendous suffering over the past decade.

On the Syrian side, the area is divided between government-held territory and the country's last opposition-held enclave, which is surrounded by Russian-backed government forces. Turkey, meanwhile, is home to millions of refugees from the civil war.

In the rebel-held enclave, hundreds of families remained trapped in rubble, the opposition emergency organization called the White Helmets said in a statement.

The area is packed with some four million people displaced from other parts of the country by the war. Many of them live in buildings that are already wrecked from past bombardments.

Strained health facilities quickly filled with the injured, rescue workers said. Others had to be emptied, including a maternity hospital, according to the SAMS medical organization.

More than 6,400 people were rescued across 10 provinces, according to Orhan Tatar, an official with Turkey's disaster management authority.

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.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured Monday's quake at 7.8, with a depth of 18 kilometres. Hours later, a 7.5 magnitude temblor struck more than 100 kilometres away.

The second jolt in the afternoon caused a multistorey apartment building to topple face-forward onto the street in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa. The structure disintegrated into rubble and raised a cloud of dust as bystanders screamed, according to video of the scene.

Thousands of buildings were reported collapsed in a wide area extending from Syria's cities of Aleppo and Hama to Turkey's Diyarbakir, more than 330 kilometres to the northeast.

In Turkey alone, more than 5,600 buildings were destroyed, authorities said. Hospitals were damaged, and one collapsed in the Turkish city of Iskenderun.

Bitterly cold temperatures could reduce the time frame that rescuers have to save trapped survivors, said Dr. Steven Godby, an expert in natural hazards at Nottingham Trent University.

The difficulty of working in areas beset by civil war would further complicate rescue efforts, he said.

Offers of help — from search-and-rescue teams to medical supplies and money — poured in from dozens of countries, as well as the European Union and NATO.

Canada stood ready to provide help in the aftermath of the quake, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday.

Trudeau said the reports and images from Turkey and Syria were “devastating.”

“Canada stands ready to provide assistance,” he said in a statement.

“Our thoughts are with everyone affected by these major earthquakes, and our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones.”