Latest earthquake news in Turkey and Syria: deaths, rescues and more

A woman pushes a cart past the rubble of collapsed buildings in Hatay, Turkey, on February 16, 2023. (Credit: Burak Kara/Getty Images)

Click here for the latest updates on the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. 

3 posts

6 mins ago

How to help earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria

By Julia M Chan

More than 36,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands injured after a powerful earthquake struck Turkey and Syria on February 6.

The 7.8 magnitude quake was one of the strongest to hit the area in more than a century.

Amid strong aftershocks, the Turkish Emergency and Disaster Management Agency (AFAD) appealed for international help.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said it has launched "immediate cash assistance" from its Emergency Fund for Disaster Response to help relief efforts in both countries. .

Many other organizations are also responding on the ground.

You can help by clicking here.

9 mins ago

Amid devastation, a family in Turkey is reunited with their 'miracle baby' found in earthquake rubble

By Katherine Dillinger

Birce's doctors say he is on the road to recovery.

(CNN)

Like those of thousands of families in Turkey and Syria, the lives of the Fansa were shattered by the earthquakes last week.

But Nilay Fansa and her husband, Cengiz, are also holding on to their "miracle baby."

The earthquakes on February 6 trapped the family under the rubble of what had been their seven-story apartment building in Kahramanmaras, Turkey.

Nilay was released about 14 hours later, then her 4-year-old daughter, Nil, and finally Cengiz.

The body of the middle child, 2-year-old Alin, was found four days after the quake, and the Fansas assumed that baby Birce had died as well.

"We were still in shock after the event," Nilay told CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta Tuesday through an interpreter.

"At that time, being the fifth day, we thought we would be seeing his lifeless body."

The Fansa family—Nilay and Cengiz with their daughters Birce, Alin, and Ni—in December.

(Credit: Courtesy of the Fansa family)

Little did they know that minutes after the earthquake, a neighbor who thought they were following the sounds of a cat helped find 8-month-old Birce alive in the rubble.

“When the earthquake happened, she was thrown from the fifth floor,” Nilay said.

“She basically fell out of the window.

And that's how she survived too;

otherwise, the place where she had been her cot was completely crushed under the concrete.

Read the full story here.

10 mins ago

Pope Francis sends a special message to the Turkish earthquake victims

By Delia Gallagher

Pope Francis in a file photograph

Pope Francis sent a message of hope and prayers to the Turkish victims of the earthquake on February 6, after meeting on Thursday with the Turkish ambassador to the Vatican, Ufuk Ulutas, according to a statement released by the Vatican press office.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the noble Turkish people at this time of great suffering. Dear brothers and sisters, I am close to you and I pray for you," the pope wrote in a book during the diplomatic meeting.

Earthquake in SyriaEarthquake in Turkey