Stories of hope, heartbreak emerge after destructive earthquakes kill thousands in Turkey and Syria

Rescue and recovery efforts in Turkey and Syria have been happening around the clock since powerful earthquakes shook the two countries, bringing down buildings and burying thousands of people inside the homes where they slept.

But emergency officials and aid workers know time is limited to save people who may still be alive.

"It's a race against time because the weather is so, so cold. It's been raining. It's been snowing. There have been heavy rains, heavy winds and the temperatures are below zero. So we need to find people as soon as possible because people are stuck under [the] rubbles," Hombeline Dulière, of the British charity Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, told Reuters news agency. 

Crews of rescue workers and volunteers are digging through mounds of crumbled concrete across southern Turkey and northern Syria, trying to reach anyone who may have survived beneath collapsed buildings.

As the death toll climbs further into the thousands, stories are emerging from survivors, of both heartbreak and hope against the odds. 

In Syria, an infant who was reportedly born underneath the rubble was pulled to safety in the northwestern town of Jinderes, an area controlled by opposition rebels. The baby girl was found with her umbilical cord attached to her mother, who did not survive.

She was taken to a hospital, in the city of Afrin, where she is receiving care.

In that same devastated city, a four-year-old girl named Noor was found buried under broken blocks of concrete and mangled rebar. In a video shared by Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, an unidentified volunteer tried to comfort the child as he cleared the debris around her.

"[Your] father is here. Don't be scared, Noor, please look at me here. Talk to your father. See! Here's your father," he said, as the dazed girl looks for his face. 

As the man picks her up, saying "Allahu akbar [God is great]," one can see in the video how lucky she was to survive. Another volunteer has to reach past a corpse lying on a slab of concrete above. 

In the Turkish province of Hatay, another four-year-old girl defied the odds by surviving more than 33 hours trapped on the first floor of a ruined three-storey building. Video shared by Turkish news outlet showed the moment she was carried to safety with relatives looking on.

Though these stories are heartening, the United Nations children's agency is bracing for a tragic loss of young lives. 

"The earthquakes that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria early [Monday] morning may have killed thousands of children," UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters at a briefing in Geneva. But he added the organization could not determine a specific death toll of children at this time.

For the families who made it out of their homes, the past two days have been arduous but there is gratitude