STORY: The combined confirmed death toll from Monday's quake, which struck a swathe of southern Turkey and neighboring Syria, rose to more than 11,000 people on Wednesday.

The tally was expected to further rise as hundreds of collapsed buildings in many cities have become tombs for people who had been asleep in the homes when the quake hit in the early morning.

Along with local residents and rescue groups, rescue dog handlers of the German International Search and Rescue (ISAR) were in Kirikhan, the first international rescuers to get to south-western Turkey to aid with finding buried earthquake victims.

Many in the Turkish disaster zone had slept in their cars or in the streets under blankets, fearful of going back into buildings shaken by the 7.8 magnitude tremor - Turkey's deadliest since 1999 - and by a second powerful quake hours later.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces.