Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- A week after a catastrophic earthquake in the region on the border of Turkey and Syria, the death toll has risen to 35,000 people. Bodies of 31,600 victims were found in southern Turkey in the disaster area, in Syria the death toll increased to 4,300, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Monday, 13 February.

Despite the fact that the chances of finding survivors are getting smaller, rescuers in the Turkish province of Gaziantep on Monday, 170 hours after the disaster, removed a living woman from under the rubble of a collapsed house. In the province of Kahramanmaras, another rescue team dug a tunnel in an attempt to rescue a woman with a 30-day-old baby and a grandmother from the ruins.

Experts fear that many more victims are under the rubble. For Turkey, this earthquake was the most destructive since 1939. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is seeking re-election, is facing growing popular discontent. Many accuse him and the authorities of slowness and inadequacy in providing assistance to the victims. The opposition criticizes the authorities for non-compliance with building standards in the earthquake zone. Erdogan denies these accusations.

In total, on 6 February, as a result of two earthquakes in Turkey with a magnitude of 7.8 and 7.6, more than 13 million people were affected in ten provinces of the country. More than 238,000 rescuers are currently working in the disaster area.