How many people died in turkey earthquake?

A powerful earthquake has hit a wide area in south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, killing dozens of people and trapping many others.

The US Geological Survey said the 7.8 magnitude tremor struck at 04:17 local time (01:17 GMT) at a depth of 17.9km (11 miles) near the city of Gaziantep.

In Turkey, officials confirmed more than 50 deaths so far. Ten cities have been hit in Turkey.

In Syria, at least 42 people were killed, state media reported.

There are fears the death toll will rise sharply in the coming hours.

Many buildings have collapsed and rescue teams have been deployed to search for survivors under huge piles of rubble.

The death toll from a strong earthquake in south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, has exceeded 2,300 people across both countries.

Turkey's disaster agency said more than 1,500 people died there, while it is estimated that 810 people died in Syria.

Those numbers are still expected to rise as rescuers comb through mountains of rubble in freezing, snowy weather.

It is Turkey's worst disaster in decades, the country's president said.

The US Geological Survey said the 7.8 magnitude tremor struck at 04:17 local time (01:17 GMT) at a depth of 17.9km (11 miles) near the city of Gaziantep.

Seismologists said the first quake was one of the largest ever recorded in Turkey. Survivors said it took two minutes for the shaking to stop.

Latest updates as death toll rises in Turkey and Syria

The eyewitnesses who captured the quake on social media

Why were the earthquakes in Turkey so deadly?

Twelve hours later, a second quake was triggered with a magnitude of 7.5, with its epicentre in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras province.

An official from Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said it was "not an aftershock" and was "independent" from the earlier quake.

Turkey lies in one of the world's most active earthquake zones. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday's disaster was the worst the country had seen since 1939, when the Erzincan earthquake in eastern Turkey killed nearly 33,000 people.

However in 1999 there was another deadly quake which killed more than 17,000 in Turkey's north-west.

One Kahramanmaras resident, Melisa Salman, said living in an earthquake zone meant she was used to "being shaken", but Monday's tremor was "the first time we have ever experienced anything like that".

"We thought it was the apocalypse," she said.

Many thousands of people have been injured - with at least 5,385 people hurt in Turkey and 2,000 in Syria.

Many of the victims are in war-torn northern Syria, where millions of refugees live in camps on both sides of the Syria-Turkey border. There have been dozens of fatalities reported in rebel-held areas.

Thousands of buildings have collapsed, and several videos show the moment they fell, as onlookers ran for cover. Many buildings that were four or five storeys high are now flattened, roads have been destroyed and there are huge mountains of rubble as far as the eye can see.

Among the buildings destroyed was Gaziantep Castle, a historical landmark that had stood for more than 2,000 years.

And a shopping mall in the city of Diyarbakir collapsed, a BBC Turkish correspondent there reported.

Turkey's energy infrastructure has been damaged, and videos have emerged showing large fires in southern Turkey. Social media users claimed they were caused by damage to the gas pipelines.

Turkey's energy minister Fatih Donmez confirmed there had been serious damage to the infrastructure, but did not mention the explosions.