Rescuers who ordered the eerie hush went into a hole in an apartment block turned into a pile of concrete and steel pancakes with blankets and a pillow. They came out again with a body bag.
The scene has been repeated countless times in Nurdagi, a town of 40,000 people, where officials would not give a death toll but said there were definitely hundreds of fatalities.
Nurdagi was close to the epicentre of the 7.8-magnitude quake and with the death toll in Turkey and Syria now above 21,000, officials said the town and surrounding villages would find "significant" numbers of fatalities before the search was called off.
Bridges on main roads around Nurdagi collapsed and mosque domes fell to the ground in the quake.
- Anxious wait -
Whole blocks of the once affluent rural town were flattened by the massive tremor.
Residents forced to live in tents or their cars watched in tears as emergency workers using drones and heat detecting monitors ordered silence when a potential survivor was found.
"The quiet is agonising. We just don't know what to expect," Emre, a local resident, said as he waited next to one block on a main road into the town.
Four ambulances waited as the rescuers shouted into the rubble and prepared blankets and stretchers. "But mostly it is bodies that come out -- our family and friends," said Emre.
Hundreds of international rescuers from Qatar, Malaysia, Spain, Kazakhstan, India and other countries are in the town.
The 130-strong Qatar team rescued a 12-year-old boy and found a woman dead in her apartment within hours of starting work, a team official said Thursday.
The Gulf state was to open a 50-bed emergency hospital in the town on Thursday.
Their 70 Malaysian counterparts embarked on their heart-wrenching mission by pulling the corpses of a baby, its mother and another adult out of the rubble.
Malaysian team leader Mohamed Khairul Jamil said the "extreme" cold had worsened what was already the most difficult mission his rescuers had undertaken but "we prepare for the worst and hope for the best".
The international brigade expects to be in southern Turkey for two weeks.
Despite the cold, Nurdagi's beleaguered residents wait well into the night outside their former homes as emergency teams and excavators work under floodlights.
One group of women sat on the team benches from a nearby football stadium staring at their former apartments where it was feared more than 10 bodies could be waiting.
"I won't be leaving until we find out," said one woman in her 70s who declined to give her name.
Two neighbours sat with her wrapped in blankets and in front of a blazing wood fire as they watched the diggers tear at the rubble.
Bodrum, a 20-year-old student from a nearby town, said he had headed to the block to find members of his mother's family.
One was confirmed dead, he said, and one was missing.
Tears, relief after Turkey rescuers pull teenager out alive
Antakya, Turkey (AFP) Feb 9, 2023 -
It had already been more than the critical 72 hours seen as a cutoff point for finding Turkish earthquake survivors.
But over 80 hours later, 16-year-old Melda Adtas was pulled out alive, leaving her overjoyed father in tears and the grieving nation cheering an agonisingly rare piece of good news after Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor.
The death toll across Turkey and Syria has climbed above 21,000, but the father felt nothing but relief.
"My dear, my dear!" he called out as rescuers pulled the teen out of the rubble and the watching crowd broke into applause.
It took rescue workers five painstaking hours to save her life after neighbours raised the alarm.
They had heard sounds from the splintered walls.
For Melda and others in Antakya, a city in one of the most affected provinces, Hatay, the biting cold worsened an already desolate situation.
Hopes rose after rescuers found three people alive in the same building, only a floor above Melda. So they and her panicked father went looking, determined to find the missing girl.
- 'God bless you!' -
When rescuers discovered Melda, she was stuck under a wall that had collapsed.
The man leading her rescue effort was Suleyman, one of a group of Black Sea miners who headed south to help.
Without him, said his co-workers, the operation could not have been carried out. He knows his way around dark, narrow spaces.
Working in silence to maintain contact with Melda, the rescuers removed one obstacle after another, as onlookers watched anxiously.
Then, all of a sudden, they reached the cold, bruised, young girl, but very much alive, and gently brought her to a waiting ambulance.
Several rescuers, wearing helmets, covered in dust and with tired faces, held the stretcher, protecting Melda with a blanket against the cold and prying eyes.
Many victims, caught up in the disaster while they were sleeping, had very little on when the quake unleashed chaos.
Once Melda was safely in the ambulance, many hugged, kissed and congratulated the rescuers. Several could not hold back tears.
"We haven't worked for nothing, we have pulled a girl from the rubble," one said.
"What day is it?" another asked, exhausted and bewildered by the gruelling race against time.
"God bless you all!" her father shouted.
What we know about the Turkey and Syria earthquake
Paris (AFP) Feb 9, 2023 -
A strong earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria in the early hours of Monday, devastating cities and killing and injuring thousands.
Here's what we know about the disaster so far:
- When and where -
The first 7.8 magnitude quake occurred at 04:17 am (0117 GMT) at a depth of about 18 kilometres (11 miles) near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, which is home to around two million people, the US Geological Survey said.
It was followed by a slightly smaller 7.5 magnitude tremor and many aftershocks.
The quakes devastated entire sections of major cities in Turkey and war-ravaged Syria.
The region also hosts millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria and other conflicts.
- Casualties -
More than 21,000 people have been killed and thousands more injured as efforts continue for a fourth day in freezing conditions to save those still trapped under rubble.
Officials and medics said Thursday that 17,674 people had died in Turkey and 3,377 in Syria, bringing the confirmed total to 21,051.
Initial rescue efforts were hampered by a winter storm that covered major roads in ice and snow and left three key airports in the area inoperable, complicating deliveries of vital aid.
Survivors are still being pulled from collapsed buildings, though disaster experts warn that the chances of saving lives drop sharply after 72 hours.
- Destruction -
Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake's epicentre between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, where entire city blocks lay in ruins.
Turkey said almost 3,000 buildings had collapsed in seven different provinces, including public hospitals.
A famous mosque dating back to the 13th century partially collapsed in the province of Maltaya, where a 14-story building with 28 apartments that housed 92 people collapsed.
Social media posts showed a 2,200-year-old hilltop castle built by Roman armies in Gaziantep lying in ruins, its walls partially turned to rubble.
In Syria, the health ministry reported damage across the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Tartus, where Russia is leasing a naval facility.
The UN's cultural body UNESCO warned that two sites on its World Heritage List, the old city of Syria's Aleppo and the fortress in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, had sustained damage and that several others may also have been hit.
It noted that the quake occurred in one of the longest continuously inhabited areas on the planet within the so-called Fertile Crescent, which has witnessed the emergence of different civilisations from the Hittites to the Ottomans.
Even before the tragedy, buildings in Aleppo often toppled due to poor infrastructure and many are dilapidated after more than a decade of war.
Large parts of Antakya in south-central Turkey -- once the ancient city of Antioch -- have been reduced to rubble.
The Syrian village of Tloul was flooded when a mud dam collapsed, leaving families to flee water that submerged houses, streets and crop fields.
Ratings agency Fitch said the quake could cause economic losses exceeding $4 billion. Insured losses will be much lower, possibly around $1 billion, due to low insurance coverage in the area, it added.
- International aid -
Condolences and offers of aid have poured in, including from the European Union, the United Nations, NATO, Washington, China and Russia.
The UN insisted Thursday on the need to avoid "politicisation" of aid to earthquake victims in Syria, which faces international sanctions, and urged Washington and Brussels to ensure there were "no impediments".
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc is planning to host a donor conference in March.
President Joe Biden promised his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the United States will send "any and all" aid needed.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington would work with partners to provide aid in Syria, instead of with the government of President Bashar al-Assad -- which is under Western sanctions over alleged humanitarian abuses during his country's nearly 12-year civil war.
Syria, which has only been offered minimal assistance because of the sanctions, on Wednesday made an official plea to the EU for help.
An aid convoy reached rebel-held northwestern Syria Thursday, the first since the earthquake, an official at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing told AFP.
France meanwhile pledged 12 million euros (almost $13 million) in emergency aid to Syria.
The UN's resident Syria coordinator, El-Mostafa Benlamlih, called for the facilitation of aid access to rebel-held areas in Syria's northwest, warning that relief stocks will soon be depleted.
The European Commission is "encouraging" EU member countries to respond to Syria's request for medical supplies and food, said the commissioner, Janez Lenarcic.
The World Health Organization said up to 23 million people overall could be affected by the earthquake and promised long-term assistance.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 77 national and 13 international emergency medical teams were deploying to the affected areas.
And the World Bank said on Thursday that it would provide Turkey with $1.78 billion to help relief and recovery efforts.
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