GENEVA/ISTANBUL - The combined death toll has risen to over 1,900 for Turkey and Syria after the region's strongest earthquake in nearly a century on Monday.
Turkey's emergency services said at least 1,121 people died in the 7.8-magnitude earthquake, with another 783 confirmed fatalities in Syria, putting that toll at 1,904.
Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it expects a significant jump in the death toll following a major earthquake and its aftershocks in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria that reduced many buildings to rubble.
The magnitude 7.8 quake, which rattled southern Turkey on Monday, was the worst to hit the country this century,killing more than 900 people there and about 550 across the border in Syria, according to officials.
It was followed hours later by another large temblor of magnitude 7.7.
"I think we can expect the death toll to increase significantly," Rick Brennan, the WHO's regional emergency director for the Eastern Mediterranean, told Reuters.
"There's been a lot of building collapses and it will increase more significantly around the epicentre of theearthquake."
Brennan said WHO was boosting its staff in the southernTurkish city of Gaziantep, the epicentre of the earthquake, and exploring its options to send emergency medical teams to the area. He said rescue efforts were being hampered by aftershocks from the initial quake.
"It's harder for the rescue teams to get in there to extract people," he said. "Buildings that may have sustained some damage but remain functional can then get another insult and they can collapse."
Syria, already grappling with a years-long humanitarian crisis, major economic woes and a cholera outbreak, was in a"perfect storm" in the wake of the deadly earthquake, according to Brennan.
"The convergence of all these crises is leading to enormous suffering," he said.
Meanwhile, the earthquake halted operations at Turkey's oil terminal in Ceyhan, which flows via Iraq's northern oil export pipeline from Kirkuk.
Turkish pipeline operator BOTAS said there was no damage on main pipelines which carry crude oil from Iraq and Azerbaijan to Turkey.
An emergency meeting will take place on the issue, the Tribeca shipping agency said.
In a notice, Tribeca said ports in southeastern Turkey are affected by the quake and that delays in operations are reported.
Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has halted flows through the pipeline which runs from Iraq's northern Kirkuk fields to Ceyhan, the region's ministry of natural resources (MNR) said on Monday.
The KRG had been pumping 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) and Iraq's federal government was pumping 75,000 bpd through the pipeline, an oil industry source told Reuters.
Oil exports will resume after a "careful inspection of the pipelines is finalised," an MNR statement said.
Most upstream oil producers have several days of storage capacity, so KRG production should continue in the near term, the oil industry source added.
AZERBAIJAN
Regarding Azeri crude flows to Turkey, two sources said there was no damage at the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) terminal, but one of the sources added that inspections would take place over the next 1-2 days.
There is sufficient storage capacity in Ceyhan and in Baku, and flows could be reduced if needed, the second source said.
The eastern Mediterranean terminal of Ceyhan is some 155 km (96 miles) from the area of the quake's epicentre.
The magnitude 7.8 quake struck southern Turkey and northwest Syria early on Monday, killing and injuring hundreds as buildings collapsed across the region.
State pipeline operator BOTAS said natural gas flows were halted to Gaziantep, Hatay and Kahramanmaras provinces and some other districts as a result of damage to a gas transmission line.
Residents in northern Iraqi provinces reported feeling a light tremor following the earthquake.