By Aina J. Khan and Dennis Romero

A massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit southern Turkey on Monday, killing more than 1,300 people in the country and neighboring Syria with scores more trapped in the rubble as another huge temblor hit the region.

Residents joined rescuers to search for survivors in freezing conditions, with the death toll expected to rise as the level of destruction became clear from the initial powerful pre-dawn temblor.

The quake jolted people from their beds and shook buildings as far away as Lebanon and Israel. Just hours later, a 7.5-magnitude quake hit the same area, raising the specter of a new humanitarian crisis in a region devastated by years of conflict.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the death toll had reached at least 912 people in his country alone, with 5,385 more wounded.

In Syria, where around 4 million people had been displaced by nearly 12 years of civil war, hundreds more were crushed to death in buildings already destroyed or weakened by bombardment.

Rescue teams try to reach trapped residents inside collapsed buildings in Adana, Turkey on Monday.AP

The quake hit an area of Syria's northwest that is divided between government-held territory and the country’s last remaining rebel-controlled enclave. Turkey is home to millions of refugees from the conflict.

At least 248 people were killed in government-controlled areas and 700 were injured, according to the country’s health ministry. In opposition-held areas, members of the opposition emergency organization known as the White Helmets said the earthquake had killed at least 221 people and injured hundreds more.

That takes the combined death toll across the two borders to at least 1,381, with fears it may still rise substantially.

“We were shaken like a cradle. There were nine of us at home. Two sons of mine are still in the rubble, I’m waiting for them,” said a woman with a broken arm and wounds on her face, speaking to Reuters in an ambulance near the wreckage of a seven-story block where she had lived in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey. 

The U.S. Geological Survey said the first quake was centered about 20 miles from Gaziantep, Turkey, a major city and provincial capital, when it struck at 4:17 a.m. local time (8:17 p.m. ET Sunday).

It was centered 11 miles deep, and a strong 6.7-magnitude aftershock rumbled about 10 minutes later. At least 20 aftershocks followed in total, some hours later.

A 7.5-magnitude quake then hit about 100 miles north of Gaziantep at a depth of just 6 miles or so at 1:24 p.m. local time (5:24 a.m. ET), according to the USGS. Shallow earthquakes cause more damage.

A map showing where the quake hit.AP

Working in pitch dark with only helmet flashlights to aid them through bitterly cold and wet winter conditions, volunteers searched through mangled metal and concrete for those trapped in the rubble.

Strained health facilities and hospitals were quickly filled with wounded, rescue workers said.

Dramatic images emerged of volunteers rescuing a child covered in mud from the rubble in the town of Zardana in the countryside of Syria's northwestern Idlib province. 

Another Syrian man was pictured carrying the body of a dead girl still wearing her striped pink and green socks, who was killed in the earthquake in Azmarin, another town in the Idlib province.

A member of the Syrian civil defense, known as the White Helmets, carries a child rescued from the rubble in the town of Zardana in the northwestern Idlib province.Abdulaziz Ketaz / AFP - Getty ImagesA Syrian man carries the body of a young girl who died after an earthquake in the town of Azmarin, in the Idlib province of north Syria on Feb. 6, 2023. Ghaith Alsayed / AP

In Turkey the quake sent buildings crumbling, including sections of the Gaziantep castle, its most famous landmark and a historical symbol of the city.

Footage from local and social media showed sections of the ancient castle, which is nestled on a 6,000-year-old hill of ruins, that had tumbled down the hill-side and were left strewn onto nearby roads.

Erdogan said it was the country’s largest disaster since 1939, adding that 2,818 buildings had collapsed in the earthquake and aftershocks. “Because the debris removal efforts are continuing in many buildings in the earthquake zone, we do not know how high the number of dead and injured will rise,” he said. “Our hope is that we recover from this disaster with the least loss of life possible.”

Offers of help that ranged from search-and-rescue teams to emergency funds and medical supplies poured in from dozens of countries, as well as the European Union and NATO.

The United States said it was “profoundly concerned” about the quake in Turkey and Syria and was monitoring events closely,

“I have been in touch with Turkish officials to relay that we stand ready to provide any and all needed assistance,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Twitter.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, also joined the chorus of international voices offering support to Turkey and Syria on Twitter. 

“France stands ready to provide emergency aid to the populations on the spot,” he said. 

Members of the White Helmets transport a casualty pulled from the rubble into an ambulance in Shalakh village in Idlib's eastern countryside.Muhammad Haj Kadour / AFP - Getty Images

Noted seismologist Lucy Jones tweeted that as many as 4.5 million people in the region experienced very strong or severe shaking, according to her reading of USGS data from the first quake.

The USGS said housing in the region is often composed of earthquake-vulnerable construction and materials, including unreinforced brick masonry and low-rise concrete frame structures without ducts.

“Overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are extremely vulnerable to earthquake shaking,” according to a USGS analysis.

The region is seismically active, the USGS said, and the initial quake appears to have been within the vicinity of a triple-junction of tectonics, between the Anatolia, Arabia and Africa plates.

Turkey sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes; 18,000 people were killed in powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.

The recorded history of earthquakes in the region goes back hundreds of years, according to the USGS, which said Monday’s temblor happened in either the East Anatolia fault zone or the Dead Sea transform fault zone.

The last big shaker in the region took place on Jan. 24, 2020, and measured 6.7, the USGS said. It was northeast of Monday’s quake, it said.