Quake deadliest in more than a decade with 20,700 dead

Rescuers pulled more survivors from beneath collapsed buildings Thursday, but hopes were starting to fade of finding many more people alive over three days after a catastrophic earthquake and series of aftershocks hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 20,700.

The quake that razed thousands of buildings was one of the deadliest worldwide in more than a decade. The deaths have surpassed the toll from a 2011 earthquake off Fukushima, Japan, that triggered a tsunami, killing more than 18,400.

The latest on the earthquake:

— The United States will provide $85 million in initial earthquake aid to Turkey and Syria. The relief will include medicine, food and shelter along with other supplies, President Joe Biden announced Thursday.

— Rescuers push to find survivors in “disaster of the century”

— Hope dims for families in Turkey as rescue turns to recovery

— Syria orphans from quake taken in by overwhelmed relatives.

— A glance at the world’s deadliest quakes in the past 25 years

A 10-year-old girl was rescued alive Thursday night in the Antakya district of Turkey’s Hatay province. DHA news agency said after making initial contact with the child, rescuers worked 32 hours at the site to clear a passage to her. Medics had to amputate one of her arms to free the girl from the rubble because removing the block that was crushing her would have endangered her further, the news agency reported. The girl’s parents and three siblings were found dead.

An hour before that, rescuers pulled a 17-year-old girl out of rubble in Adiyaman province. Miners and others brought her out and medics took her to an ambulance on a stretcher with an IV bag hanging. They briefly clapped before a rescuer asked for quiet.

Also, a 20-year-old was rescued in Kahramanmaras by IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation workers, who shouted “God is Great.”

Their medical conditions were unknown.

3 Americans killed

The U.S. has been able to confirm the deaths of three American citizens in the earthquake, and officials fear there will be more, State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday. Price was not able to say if the Americans killed were in Turkey or Syria.

Iranian state TV has quoted a sports official as saying three players from Iran’s national soccer team for the disabled have died in the earthquake in Turkey.

Mohammad Shervin Asbaghian, who heads the Iran Sports Federation for the Disabled, said Thursday that Mehdi Saeedavi, Mohammadreza Mirahmadi, and Hamed Masoudi were found dead in the ruins of a collapsed hotel, according to state TV.

He did not say where the hotel was or whether other team members had been there and what happened to them.

Narcotics found in truck

Dutch police say they found narcotics in a truck that was part of a convoy carrying aid to victims of the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria.

Police spokesman Steven van Santen said the drugs were found Thursday following a tip. They were hidden among emergency supplies in a truck that was one of six heading for Turkey or Syria.

He did not give details of what kind of drugs or the quantity. Police said in a statement that they were removed from the truck and destroyed. No arrests were immediately made.

The other five trucks in the convoy were being checked for drugs. Van Santen said as soon as the checks were completed, the aid supplies would be released so they could continue the journey to the stricken region.

Turkish groups throughout the Netherlands have been gathering emergency relief supplies in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that hit the country and neighboring Syria, killing more than 19,300 people and destroying countless buildings.

Money sought

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is pressing the international community to provide money for Turkey and Syria and work on physical access for aid to earthquake-stricken parts of Syria.

Guterres spoke to reporters at U.N. headquarters Thursday, hours after a U.N. aid convoy crossed from Turkey into Syria’s rebel-held northwest for the first time since Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake.

“More help is on the way, but much more — much more — is needed,” the U.N. chief said, adding that the organization plans to launch an international appeal next week for funding for the effort. The U.N. has released $25 million of its own money so far.

“People are facing nightmare on top of nightmare,” the U.N. chief said.

Millions displaced by the Syria’s internal conflict are living in camps in the northwest of the country, where aid deliveries across the border have become a politically charged issue.

The U.N. Security Council in 2014 authorized aid deliveries to opposition-held parts of Syria from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan through four border crossings. But that has shrunk over the years to just one, amid opposition from Russia, a top ally of the Syrian government, which wants aid to come through its capital, Damascus.

With Syria’s parliament calling for the immediate lifting of Western-led sanctions on Syria, Guterres insisted that “no sanctions of any kind interfere with relief to the population of Syria in the present.”

Some Syrians living abroad have said on social media that online fundraising platforms have blocked their efforts to wire money to their sanctioned homeland.

Sports hall becomes morgue

Reflecting the scale of devastation, an indoor sports hall has been turned into a make-shift morgue in Kahramanmaras, the nearest Turkish city to the earthquake’s epicenter.

On the floor of the hall, the size of a basketball court, lay dozens of bodies wrapped in blankets or black shrouds. At least one was very small, seemingly the body of a child aged five or six.

A man wept over a black body bag in the bed of a small truck. “I’m 70 years old, God should have taken me, not my son,” he cried.

Erdal Usta, an assistant to the provincial prosecutor, said the bodies that are dug from the rubble are brought to the building and catalogued, and await identification by relatives.

Workers on Thursday continued rescue operations in Kahramanmaras, but it was clear that many trapped in collapsed buildings had already died.

Erdogan promises rebuiuld in a year

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces a tough election in May, has renewed a promise to quake survivors to rebuild destroyed homes within a year.

Visiting regions affected by the quake for a second day on Thursday, Erdogan said the new buildings would be no higher than three or four stories.

The government was working to install temporary container homes as well as caravans to shelter those left homeless, he said after a tour of the city of Gaziantep.

Erdogan said that a state emergency that he declared earlier this week in the 10 provinces affected by the quake would be approved in parliament later on Thursday. The government has said the emergency measure would help facilitate disaster management in those areas.

In Gaziantep, Erdogan said the measure would allow the government to fight looters, “loan sharks” and other groups that he said would aim to exploit the crisis.