Sky Talk, Sky Mobile, Vodafone and Voxi are offering free calls and texts from the UK to Syria and Turkey in the wake of a devastating earthquake.
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria during the early hours of Monday morning, followed by a second measuring 7.5. The death toll rose to more than 5,000 on Tuesday as more bodies were pulled from the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Turkey's vice president, Fuat Oktay, said the total number of deaths in Turkey had risen to 3,419, with another 20,534 people injured. That brought the number of people killed to 5,102, with another 1,602 people confirmed dead on the Syrian side of the border.
READ MORE: Man woken by 'loud bangs' and room shaking during Turkey earthquake
The earthquake struck early on Monday, bringing down thousands of buildings. Rescuers were racing frantically to find more survivors but their efforts were being impeded by temperatures below freezing and some 200 aftershocks, which made the search through unstable structures perilous.
As people try to contact loved ones in the area, Sky Talk, Sky Mobile, are offering free calls and texts from the UK to Syria and Turkey until the end of February. Vodafone and Voxi are running the same deal until February 13.
The phone operators have warned mobile connectivity could be affected by damage to local networks.
Across Hatay province, just southwest of the earthquake's epicentre, officials say as many as 1,500 buildings were destroyed and many people reported relatives being trapped under the rubble with no aid or rescue teams arriving. In areas where teams worked, occasional cheers broke out through the night as survivors were brought out of the rubble.
The quake, which was centred in Turkey's south-eastern province of Kahramanmaras, sent residents of Damascus and Beirut rushing into the street and was felt as far away as Cairo. The medical aid organisation Doctors Without Borders confirmed on Tuesday that one of its staff members was among the dead after his house in Syria's Idlib province collapsed, and that others had lost family members.
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