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Rescuers in Turkey pulled more people from the rubble early on Saturday, five days after the country's most devastating earthquake since 1939, but hopes were fading in Turkey and Syria that many more survivors would be found.

In Kahramanmaras, close to the quake's epicentre in southern Turkey, there were fewer visible rescue operations amid the smashed concrete mounds of fallen houses and apartment blocks, while ever more trucks rumbled through the streets shipping out debris.

The growing death toll, exceeding 24,450 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria, raised questions over Turkey's earthquake planning and response time, and President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that authorities should have reacted faster.