also in the programme. president zelensky addresses the european parliament saying ukraine is fighting to protect europe s way of life president zelensky pleas for. we start with the devastation following monday s earthquakes in turkey and syria, where mass graves are being dug, as the death toll climbs rapidly. nearly 20,000 are known to have lost their lives. rescuers are continuing desperate attempts to find and free survivors, four days after the quakes hit. the world health organization has warned there could be a secondary disaster with survivors living on the streets with very little food and water and in freezing temperatures. our middle east correspondent anna foster is in gaziantep the epicentre of the biggest earthquake to hit the region on monday. this heavy machinery is starting to arrive mainly in the big cities like this one, it has to be said, when you think about the rural villages, towns that are as badly affected, it is so much harder to get the equip
jets to ukraine. we start with the devastating earthquakes which have rocked southern turkey and northern syria and are now known to have killed more than 11,700 people. turkey s president erdogan has been defending his government s response to the disaster on a visit to some of the worst affected areas. we ll have more on that shortly. but first, with the search operations ongoing in the rubble of collapsed buildings, dramatic pictures continue to emerge of rescues in both countries. cheering. this was the moment that rescuers hauled a boy onto a stretcher moments after he was rescued from the rubble two days after the earthquake. there were also cheers ofjubilation at being able to save his life. there have been other glimmers of hope in an otherwise grim landscape of devastation and death. our correspondent, anna foster, has been in the village of karamanmaras. i was watching them take bodies out of here last night and again this morning. it is pulling aside all of this
at this heavy machinery is starting to write the number namely in the big cities like this one. we think about the rural villages, the towns which are as badly affected, it is much harder to get equipment like that there. but here, you re starting to see these big recovery operations for their sweeping away all of this trouble. looking for bodies is essentially what they re doing. whenever you see a scene like this when you see the diggers and the earth movers, they do not believe anybody is alive and that building any more. so, a shift towards searching for bodies and clearing the rubble. but as we said rescue teams haven t given up on finding survivors with some successes. these pictures have recently come in from diyar bakir and they show a little boy, six year old basir yildiz, being rescued. crews had been digging for him for 80 hours. he s been sent to hospital for medical checks.
luckily today we are hearing that the road is opening. we do have a possibility, hopefully to access, to access the border. we are working with our with our turkish counterparts to to also give us all the support. but i think we have a glimpse of hope there that the road is accessible, and we can reach, we can reach the people. so a potential lifeline of aid may be able to get through the bab al hawa crossing. and people really need help. according to state media, the quake has forced more than 298,000 people to leave their homes. they re lighting fires amid the rubble to stay warm, overnight temperatures are below freezing in northern syria. and across the border in turkey, many of the 3.6 million syrian refugees who fled to escape the war have found themselves homeless again. these syrians are sheltering in a mosque in the city of diyar bakir
through the bab al hawa crossing. and people really need help. according to state media, the quake has forced more than 298,000 people to leave their homes. they re lighting fires amid the rubble simply to stay warm, overnight temperatures are below freezing in northern syria. and across the border in turkey, many of the 3.6 million syrian refugees who fled to escape the war in syria have found themselves homeless again. these syrians are sheltering in a mosque in the city of diyar bakir near the syrian border. translation: the earthquake is worse than the war- because it came suddenly. we were sleeping and then it happened. whereas when there is a war, you know it in advance, you hide in basements, mountains or deserts. the earthquake surprised us, we were not able to run or do anything. we just got out. why can t we go home? because all the houses are shaking. it shook again the other day,