Victims found alive in rubble a week after earthquake that killed 37,000 in Turkey, Syria

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Good evening, and welcome to the "NewsHour."

  Questions are swirling tonight about unexplained objects floating over the U.S. and Canada and being shot down by us fighter jets. We will hear more about that shortly.

• Amna Nawaz:

  First, though, we turn again to the earthquake disaster in Turkey and Syria. The official death count has now topped 37,000, but, against all odds, a few people are still being found alive in the wreckage.

  Jane Ferguson reports tonight from Turkey.

• Jane Ferguson:

  More than a week after the deadly quake, there are still near-miraculous reports of new survivors rescued. In Hatay province, a 12-year-old boy pulled out alive from under the rubble, and two brothers, age 8 and 15, also rescued after 181 hours.

  Ramazan Şerifoğlu, Uncle of Rescued Children (through translator): The rescued brothers are my brother's children. We buried our dead relatives today, but we have left all the pains behind after the rescue.

• Jane Ferguson:

  But moments of hope are fading fast. The overwhelming story is one of massive loss, as rescuers in some areas start to call off their searches.

  Experts say a week is reaching the limit of how long a human body can live without water. Freezing temperatures make that chance of survival even slimmer. Now the focus is on providing food and homes to more than a million in temporary shelters. In the city of Adiyaman, the slow response has frustrated survivors like Cengiz Caradag.

• Cengiz Caradag, Earthquake Survivor (through translator):

  This is the eighth day. From now on, we want psychological and financial help from the state.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Today, an independent business group estimated Turkey's financial damage at more than $84 billion. That damage extends out to rural areas. This snow-covered village of Polat was almost entirely ruined. The people's only hope is to hold on until spring.

• Zehra Kurukafa, Polat Resident (through translator):

  We sleep in mud, altogether with two, three, four families. There aren't enough tents in the village, so we stay together.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Across the border in Syria, U.N. emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths visited regime-controlled Aleppo, where he said the rescue phase was coming to a close.

• Martin Griffiths, U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator:

  Now the humanitarian phase, the urgency of providing shelter, psychosocial care, food, schooling, and a sense of the future for these people, that's our obligation now.

• Jane Ferguson:

  For many Syrians, it is a new displacement after more than a decade of war.

  Abu Abed Al-Khalek and his family managed to escape their home without injury.

• Abu Abed Al-Khalek, Earthquake Survivor (through translator):

  We now live on the streets. We stay up at night in the front yard, and when we feel we are falling asleep, we get in and sleep in the car that we covered.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Now, all they can do is wait and hope that help arrives.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jane Ferguson.