Earthquakes death toll passes 16,000 as "critical" window for rescues closes

Gaziantep, Turkey — Rescuers pulled more survivors from beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings Thursday but hopes were starting to fade of finding many more people alive more than three days after catastrophic earthquakes and a series of aftershocks hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 16,000.

Emergency crews working through the night in the city of Antakya were able to pull a young girl from the ruins of a building and rescue her father alive two hours later, news agency IHA reported.

As they prepared the man to be loaded into an ambulance, rescue crews told him that his daughter was alive and they were taking him to the same field hospital for treatment.