In the search and rescue operations in the Turkish province of Hatay, the specialists extracted five people from the rubble who were members of the same family, three of whom were alive, the Kyrgyz agency said.

Rescuers from the Central Asian nation arrived in Türkiye the day after the earthquakes struck and have already rescued eight people and pulled out some 200 bodies from under the ruins.

The toll of the two intense quakes of February 6 has climbed to 40,700, and experts believe the figure might rise as rescue work continues.

On February 6, two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 struck several provinces in southeastern Türkiye and northwestern Syria.

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, described what happened as the country’s biggest natural disaster since 1939, and decreed a state of emergency for three months in ten provinces affected by the earthquakes.

mh/mem/gfa