Turkey earthquake: Worry as families struggle to reach relatives

Sila Akar from Nottingham said her family in the Turkish town of Elbistan were now homeless

Relatives of family members affected by earthquakes in Turkey and Syria have said they are worried for their safety.

Sila Akar, a Turkish restaurant worker in Nottingham with family in the affected areas, said people were on the streets in freezing conditions.

She said it was difficult to get in contact with them, adding: "I'm very worried about them."

More than 11,000 people are now known to have been killed in Monday's earthquakes.

Families in some badly-hit areas have said the slow speed of rescue efforts means they have had no help digging to find relatives.

But Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan defended the response, saying it's "not possible to prepare for disasters of this magnitude".

'We can't support them'

Ms Akar, told the BBC she had grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in the affected areas.

"There's a lot of damaged houses, so [people] are on the streets as well as having to go into shelters," the 18-year-old said.

"I'm very worried about them because due to the roads they can't go to other villages and stay there.

"Right now, because we can't contact them, we can't support them."

Ilhan Dag said family members did not have access to proper food or water

Ilhan Dag, one of the owners of Anatolia restaurant in Beeston, Nottingham, said the situation had left people without basic necessities.

He said he had managed to get in touch with his family but cannot reach them all of the time. He said some of his relatives in Elbistan were hungry and homeless after the town was also cut off by deep snow.

"There's no food, no drinks, everybody's [outside in the cold] in their tents and cars. There's no petrol as well, no electric, nothing," he said.

"They're telling us 'we need food, we need help' and we can do nothing here."

Shakeel Suleman from Derby plans to ship supplies to Syria

Shakeel Suleman from Muslims in Need, in Derby, is organising donations to be sent to Syria - a country under international sanctions and civil war.

"Like we had an ethical obligation to help the people of Ukraine, we now have a humanitarian obligation to help the people of Syria," he said.

"People don't like to look at pictures of children being pulled out of rubble half of them buried, still crying in pain, but we can do something.

"Every penny, every pound we gather is sent to those people on the ground not only to keep people alive but time is of great importance."