Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday admitted "shortcomings" after criticisms poured against his government's response to the massive earthquake that has killed over 15,000 people in Turkey and Syria, reports AFP.
The sprawling scale of the disaster that flattened thousands of buildings, trapping an unknown number of people, has swamped relief operations already hampered by freezing weather.
Survivors have been left to scramble for food and shelter -- and in some cases watch helplessly as their relatives called for rescue, and eventually went silent under the debris.
"My nephew, my sister-in-law and my sister-in-law's sister are in the ruins. They are trapped under the ruins and there is no sign of life," said Semire Coban, a kindergarten teacher, in Turkey's Hatay.
"We can't reach them. We are trying to talk to them, but they are not responding... We are waiting for help. It has been 48 hours now," she said.
Still, searchers kept pulling survivors from the debris three days after the 7.8 magnitude quake that is already one of the deadliest this century, even as the death toll continues to rise.
As criticism mounted online, Erdogan visited one of the hardest-hit spots, quake epicentre Kahramanmaras, and acknowledged problems in the response.
"Of course, there are shortcomings. The conditions are clear to see. It's not possible to be ready for a disaster like this," he said.
Twitter was also not working on Turkish mobile networks, according to AFP journalists and NetBlocks web monitoring group.
- Children saved -
The window for rescuers to find survivors is narrowing as the effort nears the 72-hour mark that disaster experts consider the most likely period to save lives.
Yet on Wednesday, rescuers pulled children from under a collapsed building in the hard-hit Turkish province of Hatay, where whole stretches of towns have been levelled.
"All of a sudden we heard voices and thanks to the excavator... immediately we heard the voices of three people at the same time," said rescuer Alperen Cetinkaya.
"We are expecting more of them... the chances of getting people out of here alive are very high," he added.
Officials and medics said 12,391 people had died in Turkey and at least 2,992 in Syria from Monday's 7.8-magnitude tremor, bringing the total to 15,383 -- and experts fear the number will continue to rise sharply.
In Brussels, the EU is planning a donors conference in March to mobilise international aid for Syria and Turkey.
"We are now racing against the clock to save lives together," said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Twitter.
"No one should be left alone when a tragedy like this hits a people," von der Leyen said
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
