Survivors from Monday's catastrophic earthquake in Türkiye and Syria were still being pulled out of the rubble even after the most crucial time for rescue operations - 72 hours - had well passed.

Around two dozen people, including a three-and-half-year-old and a 66-year-old, were plucked to safety 100 hours after the quake, Turkish state media Anadolu Ajansı reported. Some of these survivors were rescued along with their sibling or parent, and one was saved by her dog, whose bark led the rescue team to their whereabouts.

The 72-hour window is considered the most critical for rescuers to find survivors buried under the debris of collapsed buildings, but the news of people still being saved long after its passage has offered a glimmer of hope. 

Search and rescue attempts are usually halted around a week after a disaster if no-one has been found alive in the previous day or two.

The confirmed death toll from the deadliest quake in the region in decades stood at 22,000 in both countries on Friday. Hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in bleak winter conditions, desperate for a multinational relief effort to alleviate their suffering.

Relief aid

A flurry of disaster relief and foreign rescue crews have arrived in Türkiye to help people affected by the tremors settle and save survivors. The government has distributed millions of hot meals, as well as tents and blankets, but is still struggling to reach many people in need.

In Syria, while the delivery of urgent supplies to its quake-hit areas has been muddled by a long-running civil conflict, convoys of aid sent by Arab countries and the UN have continuously arrived after UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres pushed for more aid access to the country on Thursday, according to Syrian state media SANA.

Citing difficulties in accessing more humanitarian assistance, Damascus has called on the U.S. and the European Union to lift their sanctions on Syria.

As international pressure for removing sanctions mounts, the U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday it has issued a temporary license to allow earthquake-related relief to get through that would otherwise be prohibited by sanctions on Syria. The license, which lasts for six months, expands on broad humanitarian authorizations already in effect.

Leaders' visits

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Friday made his first reported trip to affected areas since the quake. Speaking to reporters, he accused western countries of politicizing Syria's humanitarian crisis.

"The West has no humanitarianism, therefore politicizing the situation in Syria is something they would naturally do," he said. 

Assad visited Aleppo University Hospital and then met with rescuers in Masharqua, where paramedics on Thursday removed the bodies of 44 people and seven others alive from one building.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Michael Ryan, WHO's head of emergencies, were also arriving in Aleppo on Friday to help coordinate and support the delivery of aid.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described the powerful earthquake as "one of the greatest disasters our nation has faced in its history."

He again visited the disaster zone in his country on Friday. Touring the province of Adiyaman, Erdogan said search-and-rescue efforts would continue until no one is left trapped beneath the rubble.

He renewed a promise to rebuild the area within the year, and also said the government would subsidize rents for one year for people unwilling to stay in tents.

(With input from agencies)