Financial and social disaster. A region already destabilised by war, where another humanitarian crisis is unfolding. The worst Case Scenario is that people who werent killed by the earthquake are killed by the failure to get aid to them after the earthquake. Across turkey and syria, families were woken by a massive earthquake. This ten storey Apartment Block collapsed, the rubble trapping residents. My colleague, selin gerit, went to meet a woman who lived on the third floor. Dilek� s father and brother also died. The earthquake� s epicentre was close to the turkish syrian border. It was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks. 13 year old rola was at home injindires, North West Syria, when it happened. This happened at a depth of around 15 to 20 kilometres. What this means is its shallow enough that those first waves are really powerful, and if they reach the surface quickly, they still have a lot of energy and they can cause a huge amount of damage. In iskenderun, Southern Turkey, dilek was still trapped under the rubble. Herfriend hasan could hear she was alive. After more than eight hours, rescuers still hadnt arrived. So hasan decided to pull her out himself. Then, another large quake. Fatma when news of the earthquake broke, volunteer rescuers in the uk got ready to go to turkey. From the alert i could see that it was very serious. Theres a huge amount of uncertainty, and those hours, those early hours is really about trying to understand the scale. It was very clear that this was a major thing. Josh macabuag is a Civil Engineer and helps to rescue people in disasters. The people there that have been affected will obviously be in a state of distress, and therell be loved ones that are trapped and that are missing, and therell be those that are outside the buildings who are desperate for help. As night fell, the search for survivors was under way. Thousands were buried in rubble. The next day, the true scale of the disaster began to become clear. In towns and villages across the quake zone, people were having to fend for themselves. In North West Syria, rola was now living in a makeshift camp. In this part of syria, there are already Three Million displaced people. Much of their country reduced to rubble long before the earthquake hit, devastated by a civil war that started more than a decade ago. Syria right now can be divided into regime held syria and rebel held syria. Regime held syria is now under the control of president Bashar Al Assad and his regime, which continues to oppress people. Theres a real hellscape in North West Syria. Youve got people who were living in informal encampments, in tents, in a situation of real high levels of desperation, even the day before the earthquake. And now youve got this unspeakable tragedy piled on top. Theres only one Border Crossing where aid provided by the un can enter North West Syria from turkey. Russia, a key ally to president bashir al assad, has vetoed any others. What were actually looking at here is a strangulation situation that has put humanitarian aid in a very difficult position, and made it very hard to give people anything like the dignity or the security or the support that they need. After the earthquake, the crossing was closed. No aid was getting through. Ive come to north london to an aid collection centre. Theyre bringingl in milk, formula. Milk for babies. Snacks, food. Food, nappies. Sanitary towels. And all the stuff that were i seeing here, this is all stuff that arrived today . Yes, they all arrived today. Around half a Million People in the uk have family links to turkey. Many face an agonising wait for news. I called literally anyone i could get hold of. Your mind leaves you. You cant control your mind at this time. Cemil gorsal� s sister and her husband are missing. I havent been able to hear from herfor some time. Do you have any hope that she might still appear . No. No hope. I kind of do, but im losing that hope every day, obviously. Her street is completely destroyed and, you know, aid isnt able to reach places that are most affected. In turkey, anger about the government response was growing. President erdogan visited the disaster zone. Erdogans visit there is obviously meant to show the turkish people that he is with them, but of course this visit will also be juxtaposed by the people with the actual Rescue Missions that have not reached the area in enough time. On live tv, a woman whose relative was trapped for hours, tries to tell the story. When she says no one came, the reporter cut her off. Leading to accusations on twitter of censorship. Then this happened. Turkey blocked access to twitter. Blocking twitter, the Turkish Government is really showing that although turkey is a democracy, this democracy is being threatened by increasing curbs of freedom of expression. Back in the uk, cemil gorsal and his son erkan lost an important source of information. In time of desperate need in the last few days, how on earth a government can stop twitter . How do you expect these people to communicate with each other to find out whats happening in their cities to loved ones . People are asking to be saved and the government decides, 0k, well now were going to restrict twitter in the country. The Turkish Government says its been cooperating with twitter to combat disinformation, which causes panic and chaos, and that the Social Media Platform was restored shortly afterwards. That evening, temperatures plunged below freezing. Fearful of further aftershocks, many survivors spent the night in the open or in hastily erected shelters. A bigger International Response was badly needed. More volunteers were about to leave for turkey. Here we are in Stansted Airport about to depart for adana airport. There are eight saraid members in country already and there are 11 en route. We are among the last three to travel. The International Search and rescue team saraid were heading for maras in Southern Turkey. Its one of the most badly damaged cities in the region. You can see a number of other teams arriving. This, i believe, this is thailand, over here we have vietnam, weve got serbia, the serbian guys are waiting for transport as well. Josh has deployed all over the world, helping to rescue people from collapsed buildings. What happens every time a building collapses is you have a huge release of energy. Think about how heavy these slabs are, these floors are. All of that weight comes crashing down in an instant. Its literally shattering the building. Turkish rescue teams were already working round the clock. This is antakya. Burak akkurt and his team have just arrived. We need a call. Without a call we cannot do much. There are search teams working around, trying to find people alive inside the building. Trying to get signals, and they get a signal, and they give us a call. Burak was helping a man whose family were trapped in a collapsed building. When we first arrived here, we heard a little, a little, a little scratch after our call. And now we have made 360 degrees listening. And after our calls, we heard a little murmuring from a lady. And now we are focussing on the right hand side of the building. Because we know that on the right hand side of the building, theres an entrance and the stairways. So were going to concentrate on that part first. Its a nightmare, and antakya is facing one of its darkest days, i can say. Its been so long since the quake happened. Do you reckon they could be still alive . Yes, we have seen miracles, and i believe in miracles. Despite working through the night, burak� s team found no one alive. Most modern buildings in turkey should be designed to limit earthquake damage. Dilek eger� s apartment was only built last year. When the quake hit, it collapsed almost immediately. Across the region, many buildings suffered total colla pse. The floors stacking up, one on top of another. Engineers call it pancaking. We have seen a lot of pancaking in the area. That actually really is a term that they use to describe very brittle and sudden failure of a reinforced concrete multi storey or reinforced concrete building, and we have seen quite a lot of that. Turkey is one of the worlds most active earthquake zones. The last major quake hit in 1999 near the northwestern city of izmit, killing more than 17,000 people. Archive the damage to the | infrastructure of northeastern turkey is extensive. Homes that werent built to withstand earthquakes simply collapsed in on themselves. To try to prevent such catastrophic collapses, Turkish Building Regulations were strengthened. Professor Mehmet Aydinoglu was asked to write these new rules. This is a guide for engineers and it contains the rules for good, Safe Building design. We have a good seismic design code. I believe its one of the best in the world. But because of the lack of proper implementation, we face such a terrible situation. Some developers and Construction Firms didnt follow the rules. Rather than enforce them, the government declared an amnesty, allowing firms to pay if their building didnt meet the regulations. The government, it declared this amnesty, and these illegal buildings, theyre all legalised. This is unbelievable, actually, this is unbelievable. An estimated 75,000 buildings across Southern Turkey have been given these amnesties. This is not a disaster that we are having because of the lack of scientific knowhow or technical proficiency, the weakest link is the administration, the protocols to ensure that the quality of the constructions are there. More than 100 hours after the earthquake struck, conditions were getting worse. That was an incredibly cold night, probably around minus six, minus eight degrees. Cold in my tent. I can only imagine what it was like for people trapped under rubble. Soon after entering the coordination cell, there was a call for a live rescue. Ijoined the team on site and managed to locate the victim, essentially in an opening or void underneath the bottom of one of the slabs. One of the medics went into the hole, stabilised the void, and safely extricated her to an ambulance. The casualty informed us that her family were still down there. Unfortunately, no one else was found alive. There have been some extraordinary rescues. In the syrian town of jindayris, Baby Aya Arabic for miracle was born under the rubble. Her mother didnt survive. At a nearby hospital in afrin, Nurse Abdulrahman has been caring for other survivors. Many of them are children. This little girl was found 48 hours after the earthquake. Doctors had to amputate her right leg. This boy was also pulled from the rubble. In opposition held northern syria, theyre drawing on their experience of years of war. The white helmets, leading the rescue effort here, say theyve recovered 2,000 bodies, while 10,000 people have been injured. But the aid theyve been asking for hasnt arrived. The ongoing Civil War In Syria makes delivering aid to the region incredibly complex. Its unbelievable, but its taken this earthquake to remind people that syria has a civil war going on. And while the humanitarian issue is rightly in the forefront, any medium Term Solution needs politics as well as humanitarian aid. After three days, the Border Crossing from turkey to Northwest Syria reopened. Turkey later agreed to open another, but it was in an area badly hit by the earthquake. Aid supplies are still limited. Well, theres aid coming into syria. But we need much, much more to really keep Body And Soul together, always remembering that its absolutely freezing cold there. So that just adds to the challenge. Turkeys president erdogan has declared a three month state of emergency. Hes promising to rebuild destroyed homes within a year. The fact is the turkish economy is facing very difficult times, i dont think many people in turkey are taking this promise by president erdogan right now quite seriously. Many will see it as part of his election promises and nothing more than that. Elections are due to be held in may. Its not clear if theyll go ahead. There are fears president assad will try to use the disaster to his advantage. Assad is hoping that the earthquake will give him an opportunity to escape from international isolation, through the lifting of sanctions imposed on him. Right now, though, an estimated 17 Million People in both countries urgently need help. The worst Case Scenario is that people who werent killed by the earthquake are killed by the failure to get aid to them after the earthquake. There are people who are injured. There are people who are sick. There are people who have nothing and are at the mercy of the cold. Turkey says a full scale Emergency Response is now in operation, involving thousands of personnel, including the military, police and national guard. It says its sent around 176,000 tents to the affected region. The Disaster Response is now entering a new phase. Rescue operations are slowly winding down. Millions want reassurance its safe to return to their homes. There are obviously hundreds of thousands of buildings which have been damaged. Millions of people which have been displaced from their homes. Those people need to know if they can return to their home or they should evacuate their homes. Turkey says the earthquake destroyed more than 6,000 buildings and a further 25,000 now need to be demolished. One week on, the death toll in turkey and syria stands at more than 36,000. Its expected to rise further. Welcome to bbc news. Im lisa marie misztak. Our top stories as the number of dead exceeds 40,000 in turkey and syria more aids promised for the survivors of last weeks earthquakes. And so that un aid can be delivered to syria, two more Border Crossings have now been approved for use. Will this be enough to help the people who have been made homeless . Republican nikki haley enters next years us president ial race in a challenge to donald trump. Scientists in america say they may have