As many as ten thousand people are feared to have been killed after two catastrophic earthquakes devastated parts of Turkey and Syria on Monday.
With temperatures set to fall to near freezing overnight, rescuers are now in a desperate race against time to reach scores of survivors who remain trapped under collapsed buildings and who are at risk of freezing to death before help arrives.
Their conditions - and those of people left homeless by the 7.8 and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes - are set to worsen soon. Rain was falling on Monday and snowstorms that swept the country over the weekend are expected to last until Thursday.
The death toll in the unfolding humanitarian crisis has already passed 2,400 and is expected to rise 'significantly' as the disaster unfolds. The United States Geological Survey warned that fatalities from the quakes could reach as high as 10,000.
