Disaster management authorities in Turkey said today, Sunday, that rescue teams that were working throughout the night pulled 45 people from the rubble of buildings collapsed by the powerful earthquake that struck the east of the country, while the number of victims rose to 35 people.

Rescuers, working at temperatures below zero, used their hands and mechanical excavators to continue searching for survivors at three sites in the Azazig region where the 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck on Friday evening.

The Disaster and Emergency Management indicated that the earthquake, which was followed by more than 700 aftershocks, killed 31 people in Alazig and four in the neighboring province of Malatya, and more than 1,600 people were injured due to the earthquake.

Television stations broadcast footage showing a thirty-five-year-old woman and her baby girl as they were being rescued from the rubble in the Mustafa Pasha neighborhood of Alazig, some 550 km east of the capital, Ankara.

Official media reported that the rescuers' arrival to them after hearing their screams took several hours at temperatures of up to minus four, and the Disaster and Emergency Management said that search and rescue operations were still ongoing in three different locations in Alazig.

The administration warned residents not to return to the damaged buildings because they might collapse, and said that officials have determined that there are about 645 installations that were severely damaged, in addition to the collapse of 76 buildings in the two regions.