Videos reveal extent of Turkey, Syria earthquake devastation

Here are some of the most powerful scenes emerging from Turkey and Syria as the region reels from its worst earthquake disaster in decades.

Disaster strikes

Security camera video from inside a shop in Gaziantep shows the moment the first magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey at 4:17am (01:17 GMT) on Monday. The ground shakes continuously for more than a minute, shattering items in the store.

Foundations destroyed

A bystander captured the moment an entire apartment building collapsed in Sanliurfa, in southeastern Turkey, after sustaining heavy damage in the quake. People in the street below rush to get out of the way of the falling debris.

Second strong earthquake

This TV reporter from the Turkish channel A Haber was broadcasting live from Malatya, in southeastern Turkey, when a magnitude 7.6 earthquake hit, just hours after the first, magnitude 7.8 quake. The camera keeps recording while the crew run as structures collapse around them.

View from above

Aerial footage filmed from drones flying above Besnaya, in Syria, and Adana, in Turkey, provides some sense of how widespread the devastation is, with entire blocks of apartments flattened.

Voices under rubble

“The ceiling is on top of us.”

As the world began to understand the scale of the destruction, videos emerged on social media of people trapped under rubble, begging for help. One woman shared a clip she had filmed of herself stuck under her collapsed ceiling. Elsewhere, a father pleaded for his trapped son to “hang in there” while they waited for emergency services to arrive.

Remarkable rescues

Watch the incredible moment a baby is pulled out alive after being born under the rubble in Jinderes, Syria. The infant’s parents did not survive.

Rescue teams in northern Syria managed to lift this child out from under a collapsed building shortly after the first quake struck.

Struggling to survive

Being pulled from the rubble is not enough to guarantee survival. With unstable buildings, families in Kahramanmaras, near the epicentre of Monday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake, have been forced to spend the night outside in freezing cold weather.

Emotional appeals

“Truly, people’s situations have become unbearable.”

A correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, Alaa al-Youssef, was overcome with emotion while reporting from Atmeh, in northern Syria. Standing in front of a collapsed building, he fought back tears as he reflected on the suffering of the people who have endured years of war.

Syrian doctors are calling for international help as hospitals are overwhelmed with hundreds of injured people. Survivors in war-ravaged Idlib have told reporter Ali Haj Suleiman that the quake felt like “Doomsday”.