Rescuers still continue digging through the rubble as of Wednesday, hoping to find more people alive more than a week after two earthquakes struck Türkiye's southeast. In the meantime, survivors cling to life at hospitals where they are treated for the injuries and trauma they endured spending hours or days under slabs of concrete.

Hacı Bayram Köroğlu is among them. He was at home with his 9-year-old son when the tremors hit the province of Malatya. They are being treated at a hospital in Istanbul after a military plane evacuated them. Köroğlu recalled the moments of horror they suffered at their fifth-floor house in a six-story apartment building. Köroğlu is no stranger to earthquakes as he witnessed the 2020 earthquake that struck Malatya and Elazığ but did not see such "destruction."

"When I felt the tremors, I grabbed my son and we knelt next to the bed and performed drop and cover," he recalled, referring to vital move for protection against falling debris during the earthquakes. "I covered my son and it only took seconds before the building collapsed. I still remember that noise. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, we were buried under the rubble. My son's leg was broken when the door of the wardrobe fell on it and I was trapped somewhere between the wall and the wardrobe. We remained under the rubble for about four hours. My friends came and pulled us out. I think it was God's Will that we were rescued so early. I believe we still have lives to live in this world," he told reporters. Köroğlu was at a clinic for his son's surgery when the second earthquake hit. They were evacuated from there as well and were finally transported to Istanbul. Among Köroğlu's visitors at the hospital was President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier this week. "We have seen him and we forgot our pain. He told us not to worry and they would do everything they could for us," Köroğlu said.

Similarly, 17-year-old Taha Erdem was among the few survivors found in an apartment building where 47 people died in the earthquake in the province of Adıyaman. He woke up during the early morning tremors and rushed to the door, only to hit his head and pass out. He woke up again to the screams of other tenants, only to see a large piece of debris fall on him, trapping his leg. A high school student had his cellphone next to him, the only distraction from his plight as he awaited rescue. He decided to shoot "one last video."

"I will die. I have many things I regret doing. May Allah forgive my sins," he is heard saying in his "last" video. But it was not his last thanks to his relatives who found him under the rubble, along with his parents, some two hours after the disaster. All three were rescued alive. "I was feeling like I was in a coffin," he told Ihlas News Agency (IHA).

Ayşe Yalçın, a 45-year-old mother of five in Adıyaman's Besni district, was with her husband and three of her children when their second-floor apartment was hit by the earthquakes. "My daughter and son were trapped under a wardrobe. They could not breathe. I crawled toward them and pulled the wardrobe but I was trapped there then," Yalçın, whose shoulder was broken in the process, recalled.

"I wasn't feeling my arm. My husband was nearby and he told me to hold on for the sake of our children. I did. Finally, we crawled to safety," she recalled. Yalçın said she did not forget the screams she heard while she was under the rubble. "I first thought of my children. I could get out easily if they weren't there, but I stayed. My arm was broken but it is a pain that will go away, but you cannot forget for a lifetime the pain of losing your children," she said.

Sixty-one-year-old Recep Kandil spent 72 hours under the rubble in Kahramanmaraş where he was working as a night guard at a factory. Now undergoing treatment at a hospital in the Konya province, Kandil recounted how he spent hours praying. "I ran to the door when the earthquake happened but I could not open it. There were two armchairs in the room I was in and I pulled them next to a steel table. I knelt among them and just then, a piece of concrete fell upon me. I could not move," he told Anadolu Agency (AA) about the early moments of the disaster. "I was always saying prayers, I was always saying 'God is great,'" he said, as he waited for the rescue.

"I was barely walking when I was rescued. I was thirsty and hungry. You almost think dying would be better than being trapped there," he said.

Songül Göksu, 19, was staying in a dormitory when the earthquake hit the seven-story building. For three days, she was trapped under the rubble in Adıyaman province, before a group of miners arrived from the northern province of Zonguldak and rescued her alive. Göksu was taken to a hospital in the capital Ankara but lost her two legs. The doctors had to amputate them to save her life. "I was trapped there with my friend Senem. We were very scared. We hugged each other, prayed and waited. We tried to stay awake. Whoever fell asleep, the other one was slapping her to wake up," she shared. It was only after she heard her father's voice outside that she realized that there was a hope of rescue. Her father Yaşar, who was staying in the village of Adıyaman, rushed to the dormitory after the earthquake, which did not damage their village.

Tülay Parlakgün, a mother of three, pushes her son Salih in a shopping trolley lined with blankets past collapsed buildings to a tent where they are sheltering, trying to lift her children's spirits following the earthquake. "He likes the shopping trolley. It's a kind of baby carriage. We are trying to get by like this," she said as she stroked 3-year-old Salih and hugged her older son. "May God help us. Hopefully, these days will be over. We will return home," she said as her face etched with exhaustion.

With her sister and mother in Hatay, the 38-year-old Parlakgün sits outside and cooks soup in the street on a stove. Her sister uses her phone as a mirror to wipe her face. "The children are spending time with each other and their cousins. It's really hard for them. They cry every day. We try to be strong for them," Parlakgün said. "Their psychology is destroyed. They say: 'We don't want to live like this. I want my room. I want my toys. I want to live in my home.' We manage to find a way to console them." Hospitals have reported they are now treating increasing numbers of patients for post-traumatic stress disorder after having been overwhelmed with crush injuries in the immediate aftermath of the quake.

Parlakgün's house is still standing, at least. "Most of our belongings are damaged," she said. "Some of them are destroyed but thank God the house is in good condition. Gradually, bit by bit we will clean it up." The first time she entered her house after the earthquake she looked for blankets for her children, she said. "The first thought in my mind was them. We try to survive for them. They are our hope. We are used to watching earthquakes and similar disasters on TV but we would have never imagined we would go through this one day. It shows anything can happen to us at anytime," she concluded.