<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Rescuers raced Tuesday to find survivors in the rubble of thousands of buildings brought down by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and multiple aftershocks that struck eastern Turkey and neighboring Syria, with the discovery of more bodies raising the death toll to 5,000.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Countries around the world dispatched teams to assist in the rescue efforts, and Turkey’s disaster management agency said more than 24,400 emergency personnel were now on the ground. But with such a wide swath of territory hit by Monday’s earthquake and nearly 6,000 buildings confirmed to have collapsed in Turkey alone, their efforts were spread thin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Attempts to reach survivors were also impeded by temperatures below freezing and close to 200 aftershocks, which made the search through unstable structures perilous.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nurgul Atay told The Associated Press she could hear her mother’s voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, but that her and others efforts to get into the ruins had been futile without any rescue crews and heavy equipment to help.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“If only we could lift the concrete slab we’d be able to reach her,” she said. “My mother is 70-years-old, she won’t be able to withstand this for long.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Across Hatay province, just southwest of the earthquake’s epicenter, officials say as many as 1,500 buildings were destroyed and many people reported relatives being trapped under the rubble with no aid or rescue teams arriving.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In areas where teams worked, occasional cheers broke out through the night as survivors were brought out of the rubble.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The quake, which was centered in Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders confirmed Tuesday that one of its staff members was among the dead after his house in Syria’s Idlib province collapsed, and that others had lost family members.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We are very shocked and saddened by the impact of this disaster on the thousands of people touched by it, including our colleagues and their families,” said Sebastien Gay, the group’s head of mission in Syria.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, a provincial capital about 33 kilometers (20 miles) from the epicenter, people took refuge in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At least 3,381 people were killed in 10 Turkish provinces, with more than 20,000 injured, according to the latest figures from Turkish authorities on Tuesday. The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed to 769 people, with some 1,450 injured, according to the Health Ministry. In the country’s rebel-held northwest, groups that operate there said at least 450 people died, with many hundreds injured. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared seven days of national mourning.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Authorities fear the death toll will keep climbing as the rescuers look for survivors among tangles of metal and concrete spread across the region beset by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis. AP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>