A tragic photograph from the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras shows a distraught father holding the hand of his 15-year-old daughter, who lies lifeless beneath the rubble of a collapsed apartment building. The image has become a symbol of the devastation following the series of earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria this week.
The quakes, with magnitudes of 7.7 and 7.0 on Monday followed by a 5.7 tremor on Tuesday, have killed at least 8,000 people. Turkey's Vice President Fuat Oktay said 8,000 people had been pulled from the rubble by 20,000 rescue workers, with 3,419 confirmed dead and 20,534 injured. The country's disaster management agency reported 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 were confirmed.
The World Health Organisation has warned the death toll could reach 20,000, with 23 million people affected, including 1.4 million children. Unicef Executive Director Catherine Russell described the images as 'heart-wrenching' and said thousands of children may have died. 'Our immediate priority is to ensure children and families affected receive the support they so desperately need,' she said.
Rescue efforts continue, with the White Helmet humanitarian organisation reporting the rescue of a girl in Idlib, Syria, after more than 40 hours trapped under rubble. Nations including the United Kingdom and the United States have sent aid and rescue teams. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: 'It is now a race against time.'
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly confirmed that three British nationals are missing and at least 35 have been directly affected by the earthquakes. He told the Commons that the 'likelihood of large-scale British casualties remains low' and that the Foreign Office's Crisis Response Hub is providing support.
