4,310 confirmed dead as rescuers in Turkey and Syria search for survivors | Earthquake latest

By Alex Crawford, special correspondent, in Adana

Hundreds of rescue workers are still arriving in Turkey’s earthquake zone in the early hours. 

Adana airport is awash with personnel – many of them volunteers – who have travelled from all over the country to try to help in what is fast turning into Turkey’s worst natural disaster in nearly a century.

Many have relatives or friends they’re still trying to reach in the multiple towns and villages affected.

I was with an Istanbul-based doctor this morning as she frantically tried to telephone colleagues in Hatay, believed to be one of the worst-affected areas and near the Syrian border.

“We can’t reach them,” she said. “We are really concerned.” 

At least two hospitals are thought to have crumbled in Hatay as the earthquakes ripped through this area.

Worried people have been glued to television and radio reports and watched in horror as the number of fatalities rose with every hour.

Some 45 nations have already offered help. Turkey is going to need every last one of them. 

Reaching those affected over the border in Syria is going to be exceedingly complicated.

Many living along the Turkish border have already been displaced multiple times already.

In a region so badly hit by war and poverty for more than a decade, this area is uniquely vulnerable and unable to cope with a disaster of this magnitude.