The headscarf-covered woman could not contain her rage.

Selva was certain that dozens of her loved ones remained buried in the rubble of Turkey's catastrophic quake.

"But the rescuers have left," Selva cried beside one of the myriad bonfires protecting survivors from the bitter cold.

The 48-year-old woman watched Turkish and international teams scour through the remains of her building in Turkey's shattered Syrian border region city of Antakya.

Each one of them gave up before finding her relatives.

"The teams that came here clearly explained to us that they were looking for survivors," said retired soldier Cengiz, as he listened to Selva's cries.

"They worked for two days without finding anyone," the man said.

The rescuers moved on to other mountains of debris that were once buildings — but now increasingly look like mass graves.

"We understand that they need to look for survivors first," their neighbour Husein chipped in.

"But we have the right to reclaim the remains of our loved one."

All three preferred not to give AFP their full names because of the political sensitivities of criticising search and rescue work.

– 'Nobody here' –

The task facing Turkey in the wake of its deadliest disaster of modern times is hard to overstate.

Last week's 7.8-magnitude tremor killed nearly 40,000 people and razed entire towns and cities across the southeast of the country and parts of Syria.

Rescuers brave ceaseless aftershocks when they burrow their way into the rubble in search for signs of life.

Several more people were pullout out alive on Tuesday — more than 200 hours after the initial jolt.

But rescuers have been forced to concede defeat at numerous sites. There is simply too much rubble and not enough resources to drill through tons upon tons of concrete.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tried to soothe the anger by touring some devastated sites and regularly addressing the nation on TV.

But that message is not getting across in cities such as Antakya — largely devoid of power and lacking water and basic amenities such as toilets.

One indignant woman near the quake's epicentre in nearby Kahramanmaras accused rescuers of giving up on a mother, her newborn, and another relative.

"They gave us hope by telling us that the baby and the mother were alive," said the woman, refusing to give her name for fear of retribution.

"They said they would pull them out. But today, there is nobody here!" she cried.

– Desperate to find the dead –

Yet Erdogan does not get all the blame.

The earthquake struck a region in which the veteran leader enjoyed strong support in Turkey's last national election in 2018.

Erdogan was planning to try to extend his rule into a third decade in polls set for May 14. His government has given no clear indication yet about possibly delaying the vote.

Selva said she still backed Erdogan — despite all the pain.

"He has done a lot for us, even now," she said.

The grieving men and women around her broadly agreed with that view.

But there were were also frequent — but anonymous — voices of bitter dissent.

"We have reached the point where we could simply be happy to find the corpses," said a civil servant who requested anonymity for fear of losing her job.

She had lost her brother and her sister-and-law in the quake.

"We are so desperate that the hope of finding corpses is all we have," she said.

Battle to save lives in field hospital after Turkey quake
Antakya, Turkey (AFP) Feb 14, 2023 –

After being trapped beneath rubble for 180 hours, 25-year-old Abir is now fighting for her life in a field hospital after a catastrophic earthquake hit Turkey and Syria.

But survival is a battle.

The Syrian woman lies in a field hospital in the southern city of Antakya, where doctors are trying to save people who were pulled out after being buried for days under debris in the freezing cold.

Those who emerge are often barely clinging to life.

When Abir's heart briefly stopped after her miraculous rescue, frantic medics took turns pushing hard and fast on her chest.

It seemed hopeless until suddenly, one medic shouted: "I can hear her pulse!"

Abir is one of tens of thousands of people injured in last week's 7.8-magnitude tremor and its aftershocks, which have claimed more than 35,000 lives.

The death toll is expected to rise.

The wails of ambulance sirens had provided the backdrop for the search and rescue work conducted across the ruins of Antakya's Hatay province since the February 6 quake.

But those wails have fallen silent as the chances of finding people recede.

The focus for emergency doctors like Yilmaz Aydin is on survivors like Abir.

"It's a miracle to find a patient still alive under the rubble," Aydin said.

– 'Most extraordinary rescue' –

In a three-hour period that AFP visited, half a dozen ambulances brought injured victims to the makeshift hospital, which lies near a large Antakya hospital that has been destroyed by the quake.

"From now on, the survivors are likely to be in a more critical condition. The majority of them will need life-saving treatment," said Aydin.

Doctor Nihat Mujdat Hokenek, who is supervising victims' treatment, said Abir had abnormal air and gas in the membrane around the lungs that lines the chest cavity.

"Her heart stopped two times but we managed to bring her back. We did everything the medical literature recommends. And after an hour and a half, she pulled through," he said.

"It was a very special moment, perhaps the most extraordinary rescue of my life" because of the circumstances in which it happened, said Omar, one of the nurses who performed a cardiac massage.

"I've saved many lives but I've never been this happy," she said.

Two other women have been evacuated to a more permanent facility.

"Is my father here? Is my mother here?" one of them said through tears before she was put in a helicopter.

– 'They could survive' –

There can be more miraculous survivals, Hokenek said.

Despite the freezing temperatures, some victims could be stuck in a safe pocket under the rubble, perhaps even with food or water, although Aydin admitted this was rare.

"They could survive for a longer period," he said.

One foreign rescue worker, who declined to give his name, said that for this, "the person must be really young and in good health, hypothermia being an aggravating factor."

Several minutes later, Abir is placed on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance.

But as a helicopter waits to take her to a hospital in Adana, 200 kilometres (120 miles) away, her condition deteriorates once again.

Her life will now be in the hands of the Adana doctors. But she is far from the only one facing an uncertain fate.

Two metres away, another grey-haired victim is undergoing the same procedure by nurses. But AFP did not see the older woman emerge from the emergency treatment.

Turkish authorities say around 80,000 people have been injured.