Polish president offers condolences to Turkey

Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, has sent a condolence message to his Turkish counterpart following a powerful earthquake which has killed and injured many people in Turkey and neighbouring Syria.

"In connection with the tragic results of the earthquake, let me offer all my sincere sympathy to the families of the victims and the injured," Duda wrote in his message to Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday.

A powerful, 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked wide swaths of south-eastern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday, killing nearly 1,500 people in Turkey and at least 810 in Syria, and injuring thousands more as it toppled hundreds of buildings and trapped residents under mounds of rubble or pancaked floors.

"Poland and the Polish people are united in grief and sorrow with the families of the victims and the injured, and wish the injured a speedy recovery," the president wrote.

"Mr President, please accept my sincere sympathy and words of solidarity," Duda added.

Authorities fear the death toll will rise further as rescuers search through tangles of metal and concrete for survivors in a region beset by more than a decade of Syria's civil war and a refugee crisis.