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A 75-year-old man has died after being pulled unconscious from the surf on the NSW north coast.

Emergency Services responded to reports a man was in trouble after being struck by a wave while swimming at Shelley Beach, Nambucca Heads, just after midday on Sunday.

Police say bystanders on the sand ran into the surf and brought the man to the beach.

Paramedics treated the man on the beach before taking him to Coffs Harbour Hospital where he later died.

The man's death comes after a man and woman in their 40s drowned last week at an unpatrolled beach on the Central Coast.

© AAP 2023

Rescuers have pulled a survivor from earthquake rubble, six days after one of the worst natural disasters to hit parts of Syria and Turkey, as the death toll exceeded 28,000 and looked set to rise further.

Facing questions over his handling of Turkey's most devastating earthquake since 1939, President Tayyip Erdogan promised to start rebuilding within weeks, saying hundreds of thousands of buildings were wrecked.

In Syria, the disaster hit hardest in the rebel-held northwest, leaving many homeless for a second time after they were displaced by a decade-old civil war, though the region has received little aid compared to government-held areas.

The European Union's envoy to Syria urged Damascus not to politicise issues of humanitarian aid, rejecting accusations that the bloc had failed to provide sufficient help to Syrians after Monday's 7.8-magnitude quake and major aftershocks.

"It is absolutely unfair to be accused of not providing aid, when actually we have constantly been doing exactly that for over a decade and we are doing so much more even during the earthquake crisis," Dan Stoenescu told Reuters.

In Turkey's southeastern province of Hatay, a Romanian rescue team carried a 35-year-old man named Mustafa down a pile of debris from a building, broadcaster CNN Turk said, about 149 hours after the quake.

"His health is good, he was talking," said one of the rescuers. "He was saying, 'Get me out of here quickly, I've got claustrophobia'."

The team placed the man, lying on a stretcher and wrapped in a gold foil blanket in a waiting ambulance, before hugging each other.

On Saturday, Gizem, a rescue worker from the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, said she had seen looters in the city of Antakya. "We cannot intervene much, as most of the looters carry knives."

Police and soldiers fanned out to keep order and help with traffic, rescues and food handouts.

Turkey said about 80,000 people were in hospital, with more than 1 million in temporary shelters.

With basic infrastructure in ruins, survivors feared disease.

"If people don't die here under the rubble, they'll die from injuries. If not, they will die from infection," said Gizem.

"There is no toilet here. It is a big problem."

United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths described the earthquake as the region's worst event in 100 years, predicting the death toll would at least double.

He praised Turkey's response, saying his experience was that disaster victims were always disappointed by early relief efforts.

The earthquake hit as Erdogan faces a national election scheduled for June. Even before the disaster, his popularity was falling due to soaring inflation and a slumping Turkish currency.

The vote was already being seen as Erdogan's toughest challenge in two decades in power. He has called for solidarity and condemned "negative" politicking.

Some people affected by the quake and opposition politicians have accused the government of slow and inadequate relief efforts early on, and critics have questioned why the army, which played a key role after a 1999 earthquake, was not brought in sooner.

Erdogan has acknowledged problems, such as the challenge of delivering aid despite damaged transport links, but said the situation had been brought under control.

Prosecutors investigating the soundness of buildings that collapsed have ordered the detention or arrest of as many as 95 people, the state-owned Anadolu news agency said.

The quake ranks as the world's seventh-deadliest natural disaster this century, its toll approaching the 31,000 from a quake in neighbouring Iran in 2003.

It has killed 24,617 inside Turkey, and more than 3500 in Syria, where tolls have not been updated since Friday.

In Syria's government-controlled city of Aleppo, World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the disaster as heartbreaking as he supervised some relief distribution and promised more.

Western nations have largely shunned President Bashar al-Assad during the war that began in 2011.

© RAW 2023

Rescuers have pulled more survivors from rubble, six days after one of the worst earthquakes to hit Turkey and Syria, as Turkish authorities sought to maintain order across the disaster zone and started legal action over some building collapses.

With chances of finding more survivors growing more remote, the toll in both countries from Monday's earthquake and major aftershocks rose above 28,000 on Sunday and looked set to keep growing. It was the deadliest quake in Turkey since 1939.

Displaced residents in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, near the epicentre, said they had set up tents as close as they could to their damaged or destroyed homes in an effort to prevent them from being looted.

Facing questions over his response to the earthquake as he prepares for a national election that is expected to be the toughest of his two decades in power, President Tayyip Erdogan promised to start rebuilding within weeks.

In Syria, the disaster hit hardest in the rebel-held northwest, leaving many homeless for a second time after they were displaced by a decade-old civil war, though the region has received little aid compared to government-held areas.

The European Union's envoy to Syria urged Damascus not politicise issues of humanitarian aid, and rejected accusations that the bloc had failed to provide sufficient help to Syrians following the disaster.

"It is absolutely unfair to be accused of not providing aid, when actually we have constantly been doing exactly that for over a decade and we are doing so much more even during the earthquake crisis," Dan Stoenescu told Reuters.

In Turkey's southeastern province of Hatay, a Romanian rescue team carried a 35-year-old man named Mustafa down a pile of debris from a building, broadcaster CNN Turk said, about 149 hours after the quake.

"His health is good, he was talking," said one of the rescuers. "He was saying, 'Get me out of here quickly, I've got claustrophobia'."

Two German rescue organisations suspended work in Turkey on Saturday, citing reports of clashes between groups of people and highlighting concerns for security in the quake-hit areas.

Gizem, a rescue worker from the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, said she had seen looters in the city of Antakya. "We cannot intervene much, as most of the looters carry knives."

One elderly resident of Kahramanmaras said that gold jewellery in his home had been stolen, while in the port city of Iskenderun police had deployed at junctions of commercial streets with many phone and jewellery shops.

Erdogan has warned that looters will be severely punished.

The soundness of buildings has come into sharp focus in the aftermath of the quake.

Vice President Fuat Oktay overnight said 131 suspects had so far been identified as responsible for the collapse of some of the thousands of buildings flattened in the 10 affected provinces.

"We will follow this up meticulously until the necessary judicial process is concluded, especially for buildings that suffered heavy damage and buildings that caused deaths and injuries," he said.

Some people affected by the quake and opposition politicians have accused the government of slow and inadequate relief efforts early on, and critics have questioned why the army, which played a key role after a 1999 earthquake, was not brought in sooner.

Erdogan has acknowledged problems, such as the challenge of delivering aid despite damaged transport links, but said the situation had been brought under control. He has called for solidarity and condemned "negative" politicking.

United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths described the earthquake as the region's worst event in 100 years, predicting on Saturday that the death toll would at least double.

He praised Turkey's response, saying his experience was that disaster victims were always disappointed by early relief efforts.

The quake ranks as the world's seventh deadliest natural disaster this century, its toll approaching the 31,000 from a quake in neighbouring Iran in 2003.

It has killed 24,617 inside Turkey, and more than 3,500 in Syria, where tolls have not been updated since Friday.

© RAW 2023