Tens of thousands of people who lost their homes in a catastrophic earthquake huddled around campfires in the bitter cold and clamoured for food and water Thursday, three days after the temblor hit Turkiye and Syria and killed more than 20,000.

The US State Department has quietly implemented recommendations of a presidential commission which has suggested steps like opening up American diplomatic missions outside India for visa appointments to reduce the visa backlog in the country.

Turkish President Recep Tarrip Erdogan admitted on Wednesday to the government response to the disaster that has killed more than 15,000 people in Turkey and Syria having ‘shortcomings’.

Videos and photographs of the two earthquakes that have destroyed southern Turkey and northern Syria show rescuers digging with their hands, apartment blocks crushed to the grouds in seconds and the shaking apart of a castle that had stood for almost two millennia. The incident has killed at least 7,800 people.

Thinly-stretched rescue teams worked through the night into Wednesday, pulling more bodies from the rubble of thousands of buildings downed in Turkiye and Syria by a catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 8,000, their grim task occasionally punctuated by the joy of finding someone still alive.

China has operated a fleet of spy balloons targeting several countries including India and Japan, a media report has said, days after the US military shot down a Chinese surveillance craft floating over sensitive installations in the country.

Lahore: An Indian national, who was earlier denied a visa by a Pakistani court, entered the country on Tuesday to complete his marathon journey on foot to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj.

Former Chelsea and Newcastle forward Christian Atsu was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building following the deadly earthquake that struck Turkey, the Ghana Football Association said in a Twitter post Tuesday.