A powerful earthquake has hit a wide area in south-eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, killing dozens of people and trapping many others.
The US Geological Survey said the 7.8 magnitude tremor struck at 04:17 local time (01:17 GMT) at a depth of 17.9km (11 miles) near the city of Gaziantep.
In Turkey, officials confirmed at least 17 deaths. Many casualties were also reported in Syria.
There are fears the death toll will rise sharply in the coming hours.
Many buildings have collapsed, and rescue teams have been deployed to search for survivors.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleymon Soylu said 10 cities were affected: Gaziantep, Kahramanmaras, Hatay, Osmaniye, Adiyaman, Malatya, Sanliurfa, Adana, Diyarbakir and Kilis.
A BBC Turkish correspondent in Diyarbakir, north-east of Gaziantep, reported that a shopping mall in the city collapsed.
The tremor was also felt in Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus.
“I was writing something and just all of a sudden the entire building started shaking and yes I didn’t really know what to feel,” Mohamad El Chamaa, a student in the Lebanese capital Beirut, told the BBC.
“I was right next to the window so I was just scared that they might shatter. It went on for four-five minutes and it was pretty horrific. It was mind-blowing,” he said.
This video can not be played
To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Rushdi Abualouf, a BBC producer in the Gaza Strip, said there was about 45 seconds of shaking in the house he was staying in.
Turkish seismologists estimated the strength of the quake to be 7.4 magnitude.
They said that a second tremor hit the region just minutes later.
Turkey lies in one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.
In 1999, more than 17,000 people were killed after a powerful tremor rocked the north-west of the country.
