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Turkey: The balance sheet continues to grow after the powerful earthquake in eastern Turkey

Rescuers Tuesday led a race against time to find people alive in the heap of concrete, two days after a powerful earthquake that struck eastern Turkish province of Van, but hope inevitably diminished in spite of some miracles.

And the balance of drama Tuesday morning has risen to 366 dead and 1,300 wounded, according to an official report still provisional.The assessment given in the previous night of Monday to Tuesday was $ 279 victims.

Hundreds of rescuers worked tirelessly in the freezing cold all night and 35 hours after the earth had trembled, a pregnant woman and her two children were extracted from the rubble of a public building Ercis city hardest struck by the tragedy, reports the newspaper Hürriyet.

A few hours earlier that a police officer and his wife who had been found alive in this city, according to television.

"I was especially thirsty. It's a chance that I am still alive (...) There were bodies on the right and left," Abdullah told Pinti his ordeal on CNN-Turk.The man aged 22 survived 32 hours in the rubble of concrete and iron coffee at Ercis.

But despite these miracles, it is especially bodies that are removed from the rubble, as has been seen by AFP journalists at the scene after the earthquake of magnitude 7.2, the strongest in recent years in Turkey .

Dozens of people are still missing.

The victims are particularly numerous in Ercis and Van, the regional capital.

Grieving families began burying loved ones Tuesday, while others continued to watch with heaps of ruins in the hope that rescue teams search for survivors.

For rescuers, there is no doubt that the results would have been much higher if the earthquake had not hit a Sunday in broad daylight at a time when many were out for lunch.

"The hope is now very thin" to find miracles, Emrah Erbek breath, a young man of 23 years, volunteered as dozens of others.

"We worked tirelessly for 48 hours," he said, the clothes soiled with dust and mud.

Heavy equipment trying to lift concrete blocks while the survivors who have spent a second night in fear of aftershocks were trying to warm up around bonfires awaiting ration by the Red Crescent or other charities.

And Wednesday, the snow is announced.

Some survivors slept in their cars while others were content with a single blanket to sleep in the street.

"Our house suffered severe damage.We will have to live like that probably one or two weeks, "said Züleyha who take refuge with her husband and their 5 year old son in their car.

The Turkish state has deployed considerable resources, rushing to the scene of hundreds of rescuers, 145 ambulances, six battalions of army helicopters and ambulances.

In a show of solidarity, many Turks have rallied to help their fellow Kurds, while the army continued a major offensive against Kurdish rebels who killed 24 soldiers last week, stoking ethnic divisions.

"National Mobilization", proclaimed in a daily Haber Turk newspaper while Sözcü welcomed the Turks for "buried in their hearts" the mourning of the fallen soldiers.

Many countries, such as Israel and Armenia, two countries with which relations of Ankara are not looking good, have offered their assistance and expressed their support for Turkey which has "thanked", claiming to want to deal only to the current situation.