Quake's Death Toll Rises Steeply

Rescuers pulled more survivors from beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings Thursday, but hopes were starting to fade of finding many more people alive more than three days after a catastrophic earthquake and series of aftershocks hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 16,000 people. Emergency crews working through the night in the city of Antakya were able to pull a young girl, Hazal Guner, from the ruins of a building and also rescued her father, Soner Guner, two hours later, news agency IHA reported. As they prepared the man to be loaded into an ambulance, rescue crews told him that his daughter was alive and they were taking him to the same field hospital for treatment. "I love you all," he faintly whispered to the rescue team.

In Diyarbakir, east of Antakya, rescuers freed an injured woman from a collapsed building in the early morning hours but found the three people next to her in the rubble dead, the DHA news agency reported. In addition to 12,873 people killed in Turkey, the country's disaster management agency said more than 60,000 have been injured. On the Syrian side of the border, 3,162 have been reported dead and more than 5,000 injured. Tens of thousands are thought to have lost their homes, the AP reports. In Antakya, former residents of a collapsed building huddled around an outdoor fire overnight into Thursday, wrapping blankets tightly around themselves to try and stay warm.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to travel Thursday to the quake-hit provinces of Gaziantep, Osmaniye, and Kilis amid ongoing criticism that the government’s response has been too slow. Experts said the survival window for those trapped under the rubble or otherwise unable to obtain basic necessities was closing rapidly. At the same time, they said it was too soon to abandon hope. "The first 72 hours are considered to be critical," said Steven Godby, a natural hazards expert at Nottingham Trent University in England. "The survival ratio on average within 24 hours is 74%, after 72 hours it is 22% and by the fifth day it is 6%." According to the disaster management agency, more than 110,000 rescue personnel are now taking part in the effort.

(More Turkey-Syria earthquake stories.)