More than 1,300 people were killed when an earthquake struck central Turkey and north-west Syria, in one of the most powerful quakes in the region in at least a century, while a second powerful shake hours later threatened to overwhelm rescue efforts.
Thousands more were injured as the quake wiped out entire sections of major cities in a region filled with millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria.
The magnitude 7.8 quake, which hit in the early darkness of a winter morning, was followed by a second, 7.7 quake in the middle of the day on Monday, as rescuers in both countries were still attempting to search for survivors.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said 912 people were killed, 5,383 injured, and 2,818 buildings had collapsed.
In Syria, already wrecked by more than 11 years of civil war, the health ministry said more than 326 people had been killed and 1,042 injured. In the Syrian rebel-held north-west, rescuers said 147 people had died.
The toll was expected to rise as rescue workers and residents searched frantically for survivors under the rubble of crushed buildings in cities on both sides of the border.
The quake struck at 4.17am local time (1.17am GMT) at a depth of about 17.9km (11 miles) near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which is home to about 2 million people, the US Geological Survey said.
Television images from Turkey showed shocked people standing in the snow in their pyjamas, watching rescuers dig through the debris of damaged homes. Buildings were levelled while many people were still asleep.
Tremors were felt as far away as Lebanon, Greece, Israel and the island of Cyprus.
In the southern Turkish town of Gaziantep, 150 miles from the border with Syria and 50 miles from the epicentre of the earthquake in Kahramanmaraş, residents felt aftershocks hours later. (Guardian)
