‘Disaster of the century’: Death toll continues to rise by thousands three days after Turkey quakes

In a press conference Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “We can call it the disaster of the century,” noting the impact has been seen in more than 10 provinces of Turkey alone. According to The Guardian, the death toll in Turkey has reached more than 17,000, totaling to at least 20,411 with the fatalities in Syria combined. More than 64,000 people in Turkey are injured.

Drone footage from Reuters depicts how awful the damage is, including some 6,000 collapsed buildings.

Several stories of children being rescued out of the rubble have gone viral, including one case in which an 8-year-old boy was rescued from underneath a collapsed building after being stuck for more than 52 hours.

In another remarkable rescue, a newborn child was retrieved from underneath rubble after a woman went into labor during the earthquake while trapped. While the mother died, the child was rescued from rubble in the Afrin district of Syria’s Aleppo governorate, and still connected by the umbilical cord, activists told CBS News.

According to a cousin who spoke to Agence France-Presse, the child is the lone survivor in their immediate family.

According to the Associated Press, tens of thousands of people have lost their homes and have been huddled around campfires in the cold with little to no food and water.

Emergency crews are using pick axes, shovels, and jackhammers to dig through twisted metal and concrete in an attempt to pull out survivors. But that’s not all, volunteers are also working to demolish unsteady buildings in order to prevent more damage.

As several countries come together to assist Turkey, Syria is falling behind. While the United Nations sent its first aid convoy into opposition-controlled Syria Thursday, truck shortages, blocked roads, and other logistical hurdles are impeding efforts by the 100,000-plus rescue personnel working in Turkey, The New York Times reported.

Because of the lack of access to delivering aid to Syria, António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, urged the Security Council Thursday to agree to allow the U.N. to use more border crossings from Turkey to northern Syria for aid convoys.

This earthquake has been so severe not only due to its magnitude, but the timing as well. According to CNN, it occurred in the early morning when most people were sleeping, and at a time when the cold has resulted in showers and snow—making it more difficult to rescue those under the rubble. These severe weather conditions also worsen the chance of those without food and water getting diseases like hypothermia.