A ten-day-old baby and his mother have been rescued from rubble in Turkey, having survived for more than 90 hours.

Rescuers crouched under concrete slabs to reach baby Yagiz, in the Samandag district of the Hatay province.

His eyes were wide open as he was brought out to the words “Mashallah” (praise be, wonderful)

Emergency workers also rescued his mother, bringing her out awake on a stretcher.

The astonishing rescues of a number of small children have lifted the spirits of weary crews searching for survivors on the fifth day of the magnitude 7.8 quake in Turkey and neighbouring Syria.

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At least seven children were rescued on Friday, videos released by disaster services showed, along with several trapped adults.

The confirmed death toll from the deadliest quake in the region in two decades stood at more than 22,000 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria four days after it hit.

Hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in bleak winter conditions and leaders in both countries have faced questions about their response.

Collapsed buildings at Antakya city in Hatay.  Photo: AAP

Response should have been faster – President

The response of search and rescue teams to the massive earthquakes in the country’s south was not as fast as the government wanted, President Tayyip Erdogan said.

“Although we have the largest search and rescue team in the world right now, it is a reality that search efforts are not as fast as we wanted them to be,” he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greeting people as he visits a tent camp in the aftermath of a major earthquake in Adiyaman, Photo: AAP

Previously Mr Erdogan has accepted that the first response was slow immediately after the quake due to bad weather, damaged roads and the vast area affecting 10 provinces in the country.

Some residents in the worst hit areas complained that no emergency workers were on the ground in the crucial first hours after the quake, a charge opposition politicians have picked up on, blaming Erdogan’s government.

Tayyip Erdogan said search and rescue continued with teams joining efforts from all over the world after 94 countries offered help.

About 24.4 million people in Syria and Turkey have been affected, according to Turkish officials and the United Nations.

in an area spanning 450km from Adana in the west to Diyarbakir in the east.

In Syria, people were killed as far south as Hama, 250km from the epicentre.

Speaking in Adiyaman province, which was also hit by the earthquakes, Erdogan said some people were robbing markets and attacking businesses, adding that a state of emergency declared in the area will allow the state to impose necessary penalties.

Evacuations from the area continued.

Due to the large number of damaged buildings, tent cities have been set up by authorities to house hundreds of thousands left without home in temperatures below 0C.

President promises rebuild within a year

After visiting displaced people sheltered in tents, Mr Erdogan said if people preferred to move from the affected cities the government would pay their rents for a year.

“We will rebuild these (damaged) buildings within one year and will hand them back to citizens… While we do that we will pay the rent of citizens who do not want to stay in tents,” Erdogan said.

The rescuers, including specialist teams from dozens of countries, toiled through the night in the ruins of thousands of wrecked buildings.

In freezing temperatures, they regularly called for silence as they listened for any sound of life from mangled concrete mounds.

— with AAP