On Saturday, February 18, the death toll from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria reached over 44,000.

As of press time, the number of dead bodies had decreased to a handful, and Yunus Sezer, the head of Turkey's disaster agency, stated that rescue efforts would be "largely completed" by Sunday night.

On Saturday, the state news agency Anadolu reported that three people had been found alive nearly two weeks after the February 6 earthquake of 7.8 magnitude. However, the agency later reported that one of them had passed away, a 12-year-old.

After the married couple and their child spent 296 hours submerged in the rubble in the city of Antakya in the southeast of Turkey, rescuers were captured on camera putting the man and the woman on stretchers.

Three of their children, including the 12-year-old, had passed away, according to the agency.

A 45-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy were among the four people rescued alive from the rubble on Friday by teams in the nearby Hatay province.

In the past few days, rescues that were initially greeted with applause and relief have received a more serious reception.

The quake claimed the lives of 40,642 people in Turkey and 3,688 in Syria, according to officials and medical personnel, bringing the confirmed death toll to 44,330. For days, the death toll from Syria has not changed.

People were sleeping in homes that had not been constructed to withstand such powerful tremors when the earthquake in one of the world's most active seismic zones struck.