SW News: As the freezing weather and countless aftershocks pose a big challenge to rescue efforts in quake-ravaged Turkey and Syria, the death toll has crossed 21,500 as on Friday. There are official estimates that at least 18,000 people were killed in Turkey while more than 3,000 perished in neighboring Syria in the deadly tremors.

It appears that the current death toll in Turkey has surpassed the total number of people who died in the 1999 earthquake. So far, the total number of aftershocks that rattled the region stands at 1,509 and tens of thousands of people have been moved to safe places. Thousands are being treated for injuries sustained from falling debris, electrocution among others.

Turkish and Syrian rescue workers, volunteers, NGOs and search-and-rescue teams from scores of nations are continuing round-the-clock efforts to look for bodies as well as survivors amid the rubble. As the crucial 72 hours have passed and with the freezing weather the chances of finding survivors are getting dimmer.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is visiting the areas flattened by the tremors to coordinate rescue and relief measures and to take stock of the situation. The head of the republic has also promised to provide homes to all those people who lost their residences within a year. The government is also providing compensation of 10,000 lira to each affected family.

On Feb. 9, a UN convoy of trucks laden with emergency supplies crossed the border from Turkey into Syria to help the quake victims in the area under the control of rebels. Warm clothes, food, medicines and hygiene kits are there in the trucks apart from potable water for the residents of Idlib which was devastated in the quake.

Separately, a baby who was miraculously rescued minutes after her birth during the tremors is recuperating in a hospital in northwest Syria. She has been named Aya (miracle in Arabic) and hundreds of couples have come forward to adopt her after news of the baby’s rescue flooded social media platforms.

When she was found by rescue workers in the town of Jindayris, her umbilical cord was still intact and her parents and four siblings were dead. Doctors looking after Aya in the city of Afrin said that her condition is stable. When she arrived, she had bruises and was hardly able to breathe.