Kahramanmaras, Turkey/Jandaris, Syria: On Wednesday, rescue efforts shifted to providing aid to survivors nine days after a deadly earthquake. Two women were pulled from the rubble in the city of Kahramanmaras in southern Turkey, and a mother and two children were rescued from Antakya.
An ambulance was seen carrying away a 74-year-old woman who had been rescued in Kahramanmaras. Earlier in the day, a 46-year-old woman had also been rescued in the same city, not far from the epicenter of the earthquake.
A woman named Ela and her kids Meysam and Ali were rescued from the rubble of an Antakya apartment building later on Wednesday, 228 hours after the earthquake, according to state-run Anadolu news agency.
More than 41,000 people have died in Turkey and Syria together, and millions more need humanitarian assistance. Many survivors have been left homeless in the winter's bitter cold. Rescues are now extremely rare.
The emphasis now is on helping the survivors, and because the earthquakes severely damaged or destroyed much of the region's sanitation infrastructure, it will be difficult for health authorities to keep people healthy going forward.
The welfare of those living in northwest Syria, which is controlled by rebels and has limited access to aid, is of particular concern to the World Health Organization (WHO), which expressed this concern on Wednesday. It requested that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad open more Turkish border crossing points so that aid could pass through.
Stories of individuals who spent days buried beneath the debris started to surface as well. The walls of Huseyin Berber's ground floor were propped up by a refrigerator and a cabinet, leaving him with an armchair to sit in and a rug to keep him warm. Huseyin Berber, a 62-year-old diabetic, survived for 187 hours as a result.
From a hospital bed in Mersin City, he claimed that he only had one bottle of water and that when that ran out, he drank his own urine.
I shouted over and over again. I was being ignored. I yelled so loud that it hurt my throat. My hand was touched by a hand that had extended. Families without homes slept in tents erected on the playing field and running track of the city stadium in Kahramanmaras.
Hatice Kavakdali, 28, was holding a grey teddy bear in one tent.
"The experience we had is so indescribable. It was so terrifying, and the pain from that is still with me "She spoke. "After the earthquake, I lost consciousness, and I'm still recovering. I was unable to recall my family or how we had left the house."
Others expressed concern about the poor sanitation.
The earthquake has prevented us from being able to wash off, according to Mohammad Emin, a student of graphic design who is 21 years old.
The World Health Organization's ambassador in Turkey, Batyr Berdyklychev, has issued a warning that the lack of water in earthquake-affected areas "increases the risk of waterborne diseases and outbreaks of communicable diseases."
Pharmacist Jin Ozsaygili was concerned about health risks while treating survivors on a ferry in the port of Iskenderun in southern Turkey.
"Epidemics of cholera and typhoid are anticipated. The debris needs to be removed immediately in order to stop the spread of these diseases."
When and if authorities deemed a building safe, the government encouraged residents to return home.
Turkish Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum tweeted, "We will swiftly demolish what needs to be demolished and build safe houses."
Relief efforts in Syria, across the border, have been hampered by a civil war that has torn the nation apart and divided regional and international powers. Although the earthquake had a significant impact in government-controlled areas of Syria, those residents still had access to services. At least two attempts to send aid to the northwest of Syria from other parts of the country have been thwarted by civil war hostilities, but an aid convoy arrived there overnight.
Abdulrahman Mohammad, a displaced Syrian originally from the nearby province of Aleppo, said in Idlib, where many people had sought refuge in the previous decade from other war-torn provinces, "The situation is really tragic."
The majority of the earthquake's casualties in Syria were concentrated in the rebel-held regions of the provinces of Idlib and neighboring Aleppo, where over 4,400 of the country's more than 5,800 fatalities were recorded, according to the UN and government authorities.
Many people made lucky escapes.
Um Kanan described awakening her three children and rushing them to a tiny closet in her bedroom where they took refuge in the Syrian Mediterranean town of Jableh.
They were all alive despite their apartment on the fourth floor collapsing under the weight of the earthquake's force.
"I kept thinking to myself: 'Can it be? Did the building just fall down? Is this a dream?' I tried to move but I couldn't," she said. "The children and I, by some miracle, ended up in this small space that I had left empty."