HEARTBREAKING images show a dad holding his daughter’s hand as she lay dead beneath the rubble of the Turkey earthquake.
Mesut Hancer’s 15-year-old daughter Irmak was crushed to death when their home in the city of Kahramanmaras collapsed.
In the harrowing image, Mesut can be seen sitting in the rubble staring into the distance.
He touchingly holds lifeless Irmak's hand as she lies under concrete and her sits on a mattress.
She is among the 5200 who have so far died - a toll it's feared could rise to 20,000 - when the quake struck in the early hours of Monday morning.
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Horror pictures from Turkey yesterday showed the devastation after tower blocks collapsed - crushing and trapping people inside at 4am local time.
Images on Turkish television showed rescuers digging through rubble across city centres and residential neighbourhoods of almost all the big cities running along the border with Syria.
A baby born under the earthquake rubble in Syria was rescued just minutes after entering the world.
The tot was pulled to safety after her courageous mother delivered the little girl under the weight of a wrecked building.
The pregnant woman is believed to have been trapped under the debris for over a day in the northeastern town of Jenderes.
Sadly she reportedly died shortly after giving birth to the child surrounded by the devastation of Turkey's terrifying earthquakes.
Engineers, soldiers, paramedics and handlers with trained search dogs from across the globe are heading to Turkey and Syria to help locate and rescue survivors.
As survivors cling to life underneath the rubble, they are sending voice notes to the outside pleading for help.
A Turkish journalist told the BBC they are sending him and other journalists videos, voice notes and their live locations.
"People are still under the buildings, they need help," he Ibrahim Haskologlu.
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But tragically he added "we can't do anything" as he called for the outside world for help.
Among the dead are three British citizens, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the House of Commons.
He said: "As of this morning, we know that three British nationals are missing."
The Foreign Office's Crisis Response Hub are frantically trying to support Brits as the hunt for survivors continues.
Another huge earthquake shook Turkey today as frantic rescue efforts were underway, amid fears more than 20,000 are dead.
The 5.7 magnitude shock jolted the nation and Syria for the third time in over 24 hours after two "once-in-a-century" tremors caused mass devastation yesterday.
The latest quake rocked eastern Turkey on Tuesday at a depth of 28miles, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.
Another 5.8 magnitude quake then followed, further hampering desperate rescue efforts as teams race against the clock in the cold weather.
It comes as...
- Up to 20,000 are feared dead across Turkey and Syria after a huge 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck on Monday.
- A series of disastrous aftershocks have hampered rescue efforts after the collapse of more than 5,000 buildings.
- At least three Brits are missing in the chaos, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said.
- Trapped victims have reportedly been sending desperate voice notes begging for help.
- A grieving father was seen holding the lifeless hand of his daughter whose body was trapped in a destroyed building in Kahramanmaras.
- Ex-Chelsea footballer Christian Atsu was miraculously pulled from the rubble of a building in the same city.
- A newborn baby was also pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building in Jindires, Syria, after his mother died giving birth.
- Aid and rescuers are pouring in from across the world, including from the UK and war-torn Ukraine.
- The Sun has launched the Earthquake Appeal to raise money to help respond to the destruction.
The earthquakes also sparked tsunami alerts on Mediterranean coasts in Greece, Cyprus and Italy, and shaking was felt as far away as Egypt and Iran.
The World Health Organisation has warned the death toll could rocket to more than 20,000 as rescuers find more victims in the rubble.
Over 24,400 emergency personnel are helping to find survivors among the debris of the demolished cities.
Frantic survivors used their bare hands to dig through the rubble of flattened homes and were filmed pulling children to safety amid scenes of utter destruction.
Teams have worked through the night with heavy machinery to cut through the slabs of concrete to locate the wounded.
One mum and her six-month-old baby were rescued after being trapped under the wreckage of a building in Hatay for nearly 29 hours.
An aid worker heard a voice echoing among the ruins of an apartment block when they found Hulya Yilmaz and her tot.
Ex-Chelsea player Christian Atsu was found alive after being buried underneath the rubble until rescuers reportedly heard his voice.
The 31-year-old Ghana ace was said to sustained injuries - but Hatayspor’s Sporting Director Taner Savut remains stuck.
Harrowing images from the ground show bodies being dragged from the debris, while those who have been left with nothing wander the streets.
Some have been left without shoes and coats while persevering through the heavy rain and snow.
The crumbled remains of once-hulking buildings are strewn across major roads, bringing traffic to a standstill.
The 7.8 shock was the biggest in Turkey for "hundreds of years", geophysics professor Martin Mai told the BBC.
It struck near Gaziantep in eastern Turkey at a depth of around 15 miles.
The powerful quake was followed by dozens of intense aftershocks which toppled already damaged buildings in great heaps of dust.
Then just before 1.30pm a second massive quake of magnitude 7.5 sent terrified locals running into the streets.
Videos showed buildings collapsing as rescue workers fled for their lives amid dust and chaos.
The second quake - which was just six miles deep with an epicentre 59 miles north of the first - would itself have been the region's most powerful since 1999.
Earthquake experts said it lay on a separate fault line but would almost certainly have been triggered by the initial shock.
Survivors of the destruction face freezing conditions and potential disease.
At least 20 detainees at a Syrian prison - believed to be jihadists - escaped after the quake damaged the jail, AFP reports.
Inmates are said to have "started to mutiny" before taking control of the prison in the town of Rajo near the Turkish border.
The facility holds about 2,000 inmates, with about 1,300 of them suspected to be IS fighters, said an official at the jail.
Striking just before dawn, the epicentre was near the town of Nurdagi, Turkey.
The ground began to shake as many people were still asleep in their beds and unable to flee.
Melisa Salman, of Kahramanmaras, said living in an earthquake zone meant she was used to "being shaken".
But she told the BBC: "It's the first time we have ever experienced anything like that. We thought it was the apocalypse."
More than 120 aftershocks followed along a 200-mile fault line including three of greater than 6.0 magnitude.
And elsewhere, a massive column of fire was seen as a gas pipeline ruptured.
Footage shared on social media reportedly shows the scene in Kahramanmara as flames lit up the night sky.
Gas flows were suspended in the city and into Hatay and Kahramanmaraş after the explosion, according to BOTAS.
The Port of Iskenderun also suffered significant structural damage in wake of the earthquake, before a raging fire broke out among containers at the terminal.
Logistics firm Maersk said operations have been suspended, with ships en route forced to divert to nearby ports.
Buildings were reported collapsed across a 200-mile swathe of cities from Diyarbakir in Turkey to Aleppo and Hama in Syria.
Some of the heaviest devastation occurred near the quake's epicentre between Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep, where entire city blocks lay in ruins under the gathering snow.
Gaziantep Castle, which was built more than 2,200 years ago, collapsed during the earthquake.
As dawn broke, desperate rescue operations were underway in a bid to free those trapped under the rubble.
Video showed the moment one family was pulled alive from the wreckage of their home Turkey and a young boy being rescued in Syria.
In Syria, buildings already damaged by years of civil war collapsed in areas that are home to millions of refugees.
In Turkey, shocked survivors rushed out into the snow-covered streets in their pyjamas, watching rescuers dig through the debris of damaged homes.
The rescue was being hampered by a winter blizzard that covered major roads in ice and snow.
The quake made three major airports in the area inoperable, further complicating deliveries of vital aid.
A famous mosque dating back to the 13th century partially collapsed in the province of Maltaya, where a 14-floor building with 28 apartments also collapsed.
In other cities, anguished rescuers struggled to reach survivors trapped under the debris.
In Turkey, frequently has earthquakes since it sits on top of major fault lines.
In 1999, more than 17,000 people were killed after a powerful tremor rocked the north-west of Turkey.
Turkey’s worst earthquake disaster was in 1939 when 33,000 people died in the eastern Erzincan province.
