Image source, Reuters

An aid worker in the Syrian city of Aleppo has described the situation there as “the deepest levels of hell”.

Father Tony O’Riordan from the Jesuit Refugee Service spoke to the BBC’s World At One from the government-held city, which was already devastated by the country’s 12-year-long civil war.

He says new buildings have collapsed due to the earthquake, and others have become unsafe “displacing people across the city”.

He says that before the earthquake a co-worker had described the situation in Aleppo as “hell”.

“That was before the earthquake hit, so if we were in hell before the earthquake we’re now in the deepest level of hell,” he says.

He says there are more than 120 emergency shelters in the city, and that people are so traumatised by the buildings collapsing after the earthquakes that many are now sleeping in cars and outdoors in sub-zero temperatures.

“We need... civil organisations and governments of the West to pump aid in here very, very quickly,” he says.

As we've been reporting, people on both sides of the border between Turkey and Syria have been affected by Monday's devastating earthquake.

In the rebel-held region of Idlib, north-west Syria, people on the ground say the situation is getting worse with very little aid getting through.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, EPA-EFE

A second UN aid convoy for victims of the earthquake in Syria has arrived at the crossing point from Turkey.

Officials from the International Organisation for Migration say it comprises 14 lorries carrying equipment including tents, blankets, mattresses and insulators, as well as hygiene and food kits.

Getting aid into north-west Syria - territory held by rebels at war with the Syrian government - has been a major challenge, as there is only access for aid via the single crossing point at Bab al-Hawa.

The first convoy of aid crossed into north-west Syria on Thursday after damage to roads meant it had been closed since the earthquake struck on Monday.

If you’re just joining us or need a recap, here’s a summary of the situation in Turkey and Syria five days after devastating earthquakes hit the region:

• The death toll has now surpassed 22,300. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have both visited disaster-struck areas today
• Erdogan admitted that the government's response to Monday's earthquake has not been as fast as he had hoped
• A second UN aid convoy for earthquake survivors in Syria has arrived at the crossing point from Turkey but there is frustration among aid workers over the speed of help arriving
• The situation in Syria has been described as “absolutely catastrophic” by the Syrian civil defence organisation the White Helmets
• Rescuers in both countries are continuing the painstaking work of trying to find survivors, but hopes are fading
• However, five days on from the earthquake some near-miraculous survivor stories have emerged, including in Turkey’s southern Hatay province where six people were pulled from the rubble of a five-storey apartment building
• And in the UK, the Disasters Emergency Committee’s (DEC) Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal says it has raised £32.9m ($39.8m) on its first day, including £5m matched by the UK government

President Bashar al-Assad has been shown on Syrian TV meeting rescue workers at the site of a collapsed building in government-held Aleppo. One official salutes the president and they chat while shaking hands.

It is Assad's first public visit to an area affected by the earthquake.

The Syrian civil defence, know as the White Helmets, operates in rebel-held areas. It says the situation in north-west Syria is "absolutely catastrophic".

Much of Aleppo was destroyed in Syria's civil war before it was recaptured by the government in late 2016.

The conflict began in 2011 when a peaceful uprising against Assad led to a brutal crackdown. This triggered even more protests, which eventually spiralled into a full-scale conflict that destroyed cities, left thousands of people dead and displaced millions.

The Assad regime has been subject to international sanctions and is accused of committing war crimes.

Read more on Syria's war here.

Image source, Reuters

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has admitted that the government's response to Monday's earthquake has not been as fast as he had hoped.

Erdogan has faced criticism from survivors about an insufficient number of rescuers and humanitarian aid being delivered in the first days after the quake struck.

Speaking to reporters in the southern city of Adiyaman, which was also hit by the quake, he said in comments cited by AFP: "So many buildings were damaged that unfortunately, we were not able to speed up our interventions as quickly as we had desired."

He also said some people were robbing markets and attacking businesses, adding that a state of emergency declared in the area will allow the state to impose the necessary penalties.

The death toll from Monday’s earthquakes has now surpassed 22,300.

Turkish officials and medics says 18,991 people have died there due to the quake, while there have been 3,377 deaths Syria, according to the AFP news agency, bringing the current total to 22,368.

Alice Cuddy
Reporting from Iskenderun, southern Turkey

When night falls around the fallen buildings in southern Turkey, temperatures drop dramatically.

As we sat at the site of a former apartment building in Iskenderun on Thursday evening, residents waiting for news of loved ones lit fires to keep warm in the freezing weather.

Cups of soup and hot drinks were passed around. Hope was fading, with no survivors to celebrate that day. But the community took a moment to care for each other and eat together.

One man, whose daughter and ex-wife are missing in the rubble, beckoned us over to join them and insisted we sit down. After eating, some families with places to stay left for the night.

Others stayed put, watching rescuers continue their search efforts with only the light of torches.

As we reported earlier, the head of the Syrian civil defence group, the White Helmets, has claimed that 100 hours after the earthquake struck, no fresh help had reached north-west Syria. Raed al-Saleh also accused the UN of handling the emergency response "badly".

The White Helmets describe themselves as a volunteer workforce that acts to save people in Syria's war zones.

Their official name is the Syrian Civil Defence - they began in early 2013, rescuing victims of government shelling and air raids.

The White Helmets operate only in rebel-held areas where no state emergency services operate. They say all their members have signed up to a non-partisan code of conduct.

The White Helmets have been internationally praised for their work, and several countries, including the UK and Germany, even resettled some of its members and their families who fled the war.

But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies, especially Russia, have long been hostile to the White Helmets and have accused their members of being al-Qaeda jihadists.

The Syrian civil defence organisation the White Helmets, which operates in north-west Syria, has described the situation there as "absolutely catastrophic" following Monday's earthquake.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme from Istanbul, Oubadah Alwan said, five days after the disaster, the organisation's volunteers on the ground in Syria are "spread very thin" and that rescue equipment is in short supply.

"There's a huge lack in equipment and tools and fuel to power our tools and power our ambulance vehicles and cars," he said.

He said as the voices of people under the rubble become fewer, they are still waiting for aid in response to the earthquake to arrive, which he said was disappointing.

"There's people, there's volunteers, there's organisations that want to get into Syria, but it's just been very difficult at the moment, it's disrupted the ability to kind of help."

He said some of the challenges come from the UN Security Council protocols that exist for bringing aid into a war zone area controlled by rebel forces.

The Disasters Emergency Committee’s (DEC) Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal in the UK says it has raised £32.9m on its first day, including £5m matched by the UK government through the UK Aid Match scheme.

Saleh Saeed, chief executive of the DEC, says he is “tremendously grateful” to those who have donated to the appeal.

“The stories we are now hearing from the survivors who have managed to escape the ruins of flattened and crumpled buildings without shoes and coats in the depths of winter are desperately sad," he says, adding that funds donated to the DEC are being used to provide hot meals, blankets and medical aid.

“But we can do more with your donations. If you are able - please help,” he says.

The DEC brings together 15 charities including Islamic Relief, Oxfam and the International Rescue Committee, who are working with locally led relief efforts.

Bryn Palmer
BBC Scotland News

A Turkish man based in Edinburgh says he has lost more than 120 members of his family in the devastating earthquake on Monday.

Sahin Firat is the president of the Turkish-Scottish Chamber of Commerce and is co-ordinating donations to the earthquake appeal in the Scottish capital.

"I lost only from my family more than 120 people - my cousins, aunties, uncles, nephews... and also others from my village, neighbours," he told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme.

"They were in Adiyaman, in the city centre. All of Turkey is really bad. I get some news from my brother and others in my city. We are only seeing 20% of it.

"Everyone is staying in cars or on the street. When they find petrol, they stay in the car to keep warm. Other times, if it is not raining, they try to find some wood or paper to make a fire.

"Every day is worse and worse. It is an emergency situation, like a war. Until today, we have been collecting clothes, food, cleaning stuff. But now they need money to support them because they don’t have a house anymore."

Laura Gozzi
BBC News Live reporter

During the last 12 years of war, Syria's territory has become fragmented, and many parts have long been hard to reach by international aid organisations.

In the first few days after the quake, some supplies reached the government-controlled areas of Syria, primarily from friendly countries like Russia, Iran and the UAE.

But the north-western rebel-controlled areas of Syria remain virtually cut off.

This is because international humanitarian aid to these parts can only arrive through a single crossing from Turkey or through the government-controlled areas of Syria.

The latter is not currently an option, as Western countries that have all but severed ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are reluctant to send aid through the Syrian government.

And although this week, the US announced an emergency relief package of $85m (£70m) to both Turkey and Syria, the Syrian government is still resisting pressure to open the rebel-controlled areas to international teams.

As for the Turkey border crossing, it was closed for 72 hours after the earthquake.

Even now it has reopened, the flow of aid is very limited - the roads leading to it have been severely damaged and, in any case, many airports in southern Turkey remain shut, making it difficult to deliver large supplies.

It’s worth remembering that this section of Syria has already been devastated by years of war, which has seen Syrian government and allied Russian bombardment target infrastructure including hospitals.

This is what experts are referring to when they say that the quake has caused “a crisis on top of multiple crises”.

Image source, .

Imogen Foulkes
Reporting from Geneva

The head of the Syrian civil defence group, the White Helmets, has accused the United Nations of handling the earthquake response "badly" and not acting in an "impartial" way.

Speaking to UN correspondents in Geneva via video link from Idlib, Raed al-Saleh said that, 100 hours after the earthquake struck, the only aid to arrive in north-west Syria were six trucks of supplies which had already been scheduled before the earthquake.

UN humanitarian deliveries to parts of Syria still in opposition hands have been hampered for over a year because of the reduction, at Russia’s insistence, of land border crossings from Turkey to Syria.

Russia says aid supplies should go via Damascus - however, today the White Helmets claimed the Syrian government had sent "nothing" to northern Syria.

The UN, al-Saleh suggested, could try to open more humanitarian corridors, but "didn’t want to make Russia angry".

UN officials will certainly dispute this interpretation. The UN’s emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths is due in north-west Syria this weekend. It remains unclear if he will meet the White Helmets.

Emre Temel
BBC Turkish

The chances of finding survivors still trapped in the rubble are becoming slimmer, five days on from the earthquake. But there are some near-miraculous reports still emerging.

In Turkey's southern Adiyaman province, 60-year-old Eyup Ak was rescued from rubble 104 hours after the quake.

His wife and children, however, are still under the rubble, reports say.

Elsewhere, search and rescue teams have managed to pull six people from the rubble of a five-storey apartment building in the Iskenderun district of Turkey's southern Hatay province earlier this morning.

Pro-government media outlets in Turkey have put their focus on the search and rescue efforts taking place, with search and rescues reportedly completed in the provinces of Kilis and Sanliurfa, largely completed in Diyarbakir, Adana and Osmaniye provinces.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that all crews had been mobilised on the ground.

Despite this, many people on social media have criticised the government for a "huge lack of co-ordination" in the quake-hit zones.

Image source, .

Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent in Osmaniye, southern Turkey

Image source, Dave Bull/BBC

When so much is smashed in seconds, hope remains stubborn.

Around hills of rubble, survivors gather, with bated breath, praying their loved ones have - somehow - survived beneath the ruins of their lives.

At one moment, on one small street in Osmaniye, anticipation ripples through the crowd as rescuers dig deeper.

But hope is quickly crushed; a dead body is pulled out.

An agonising cry shatters the hubbub as one young woman sobs in a grief so great it pulls her to the ground.

Hours later, on this same street, around another mound, cries of “Allahu Akbar” - “God is greater” - rise as someone’s loved one is rescued, alive.

“These are the moments I will remember,” Salim, an exhausted emergency worker tells us, as he keeps working under bright lights, through another sleepless night.

In the darkness, along the pavement, families keep warm around small fires.

“I know my brother-in-law is dead,” Mazhar, a local lawyer, explains. "I am staying here to make sure the rescuers find his body.”

Image source, Dave Bull/BBC

It's been four days since the earthquake hit and the situation in north-west Syria is desperate, with aid in short supply.

Here's a summary of what we know about the aid situation there at the moment:

• Yesterday, the first UN aid convoy arrived into opposition-held north-west Syria, the first international help people there have had since the quake hit
• Volunteer organisation the White Helmets, which operates in rebel-held parts of Syria, has expressed its disappointment at the delivery. It says the convoy was a delivery of aid that had been scheduled prior to the earthquake, and did not include specialist rescue equipment
• A doctor who was working in Syria in the days after the quake, Dr Mohamed Hassoun, has told the BBC that the medical supplies they have there do not even cover the needs of 20% of the people in the north of the country
• The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday it was running out of stocks in north-west Syria, Reuters reports. Some 90% of the population there depends on humanitarian assistance, the WFP said

Simon King
BBC weather presenter and meteorologist

Freezing weather is causing major concern in the earthquake-affected areas as thousands of survivors have no shelter.

The temperature in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep last night went down to -4C. It was also freezing in the Syrian city of Aleppo (-2C) and the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras (-5C).

Much of the east of Europe is experiencing a cold spell, and in Turkey some areas of Turkey are experiencing temperatures around 10C below average. This cold air is sitting below a big area of high pressure, which is also keeping the weather dry and sunny.

Unfortunately, there is no sign of the freezing weather ending any time soon. For the next week at least, the overnight temperatures in Gaziantep, for example, will stay below freezing.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has visited a hospital in the city of Aleppo - which was one of the areas hit by the earthquake on Monday - the presidency has said.

Photos of the president and his wife visiting people being treated at Aleppo University Hospital on Friday have been posted on the presidency's Twitter account.

It is Assad's first reported visit to an area affected by the quake.

Poor enforcement of building regulations contributed to the collapse of many buildings in Monday's earthquakes.

Construction regulations were tightened following previous disasters in Turkey, most recently in 2018.

Stricter safety standards were also brought in following the 1999 earthquake around the city of Izmit, in the north-west of the country, in which 17,000 people died.

But periodic "construction amnesties", which offer legal exemption to those structures built without the required safety certificates for a stated fee, have contributed to the recent catastrophe, experts suggest.

Up to 75,000 buildings across the affected earthquake zone, external in southern Turkey have been given amnesties, according to Pelin Pınar Giritlioglu, Istanbul head of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects' Chamber of City Planners.

BBC's Reality Check has been looking at some of the more recently constructed buildings which collapsed during Monday's earthquake and what claims were originally made regarding earthquake compliance by the companies who completed them.

Read on to find out more.