Turkey earthquake disaster Northern Ireland: K9 Search & Rescue NI volunteers Ryan Gray and Kyle Murray with dogs Max and Delta locate six people in rubble

Ryan Gray and Kyle Murray from K9 Search & Rescue NI are working with the international rescue operation in south Turkey after flying into the city of Adana.

Two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 struck nine hours apart in south-eastern Turkey and Syria on 6 February.

The death toll recently passed 35,000 as rescuers continued to work to reach people trapped under the rubble.

The two-man team, and their search dogs Max and Delta, flew to Turkey on Friday and are working with Evolsar - the European Association of Civil Protection Volunteer Teams.

In a message on Facebook they have reported how they helped locate six people including the two young children.

"Early this morning, before breakfast we were called to a site where it was believed people may still be alive," they said in a social media post late on Tuesday night.

Three Search and Rescue Dogs were put to work - two from NI and one from the Portuguese SAR (Search and Rescue) Team.

"All three dogs alerted people to be under the rubble. Digging continued and the dogs were brought back in as rubble was removed, to continue narrowing down the area.

"A Chinese Search and Rescue team arrived onsite with a state of the art device that detects heart beats, under rubble. That machine confirmed a heart beat, a distance and direction.

"Colleagues from Serve On and Evolsar assisted in breaking and breaching the concrete to gain access to those trapped.

"We had to depart the site at 1630 local time, however have just received word that work is underway to rescue six people including a two year old boy and a three year old girl, brother and sister."

There has not yet been an update on how the rescue progressed.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan says more than 35,000 people have died in Turkey as a result of last week’s earthquake, making it the deadliest such disaster since the country’s founding 100 years ago.

While the death toll is almost certain to rise even further, many of the tens of thousands of survivors left homeless were still struggling to meet basic needs, such as finding shelter from the bitter cold.

Confirmed deaths in Turkey passed those recorded from the massive Erzincan earthquake in 1939 that killed around 33,000 people.

Mr Erdogan said on Tuesday that 105,505 were injured as a result of the quake.

Almost 3,700 deaths have been confirmed in neighbouring Syria, taking the combined toll in both countries to over 39,000.

The Turkish president, who has referred to the quakes as “the disaster of the century”, said more than 13,000 people were still being treated in hospital.

Speaking in Ankara following a five-hour Cabinet meeting held at the headquarters of disaster agency AFAD, Mr Erdogan said 47,000 buildings, which contained 211,000 residences, had either been destroyed or were so badly damaged as to require demolition.

“We will continue our work until we get our last citizen out of the destroyed buildings,” Mr Erdogan said of ongoing rescue efforts.

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