Families cling to slim hopes as quake death toll climbs to 21,000

Baby pulled alive from rubble but hopes fade after 100 hours

- Nicholas Cecil

THOUSANDS of families were desperately clinging to hope today as survivors were being found more than 100 hours after being trapped in the earthquakes which hit Turkey and Syria.

But the death toll from the disaster climbed above 21,000 with hundreds of thousands of people struggling to survive in freezing conditions, many with their homes destroyed.

Six people were freed from a collapsed building in Iskenderun, in the southern Hatay province, 101 hours after the earthquakes struck. All of them related, they managed to survive by huddling together in a small pocket left within the collapsed structure, said Murat Baygul, a search and rescue worker. A mother and her 10-year-old son were also found alive after 101 hours trapped in a destroyed building in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir.