Heartwarming moment young boy is pulled from rubble after deadly earthquakes in Turkey & Syria, as expert issues warning

shows the heart-wrenching scenes of young Abdul Hakim's rescue as hundreds pray and cry in a moment of relief from the misery inflicted by the deadly earthquakes.

The major 7.8 magnitude earthquake - a once-in-a-century event - brutally struck southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria in the early hours of Monday.

It was followed by another 7.5 magnitude earthquake and violent aftershocks and tremors that continued to devastate the region and hinder rescue efforts.

The World Health Organisation predicts 23 million people are affected by the disaster, and the death toll has now surpassed 20,000.

Search and rescue volunteers have been desperately scrambling over the ruins of flattened buildings to find survivors - listening out for voices of those trapped.

The footage was released by the White Helmets - otherwise known as Syria Civil Defence - who are the longstanding civil society crisis organisation working tirelessly to save survivors across the war-shattered country.

It captures the teams exhaustingly trying to free Abdul Hakim in a lengthy mission, which provides a singular moment of hope for all those watching on.

The rescue took place in the town of Armanāz, west of Idlib in Syria's North West - an area considered to be a stronghold of Syrian rebels.

The war-weary region was deeply vulnerable to the earthquake as its buildings were already battered from bombing raids throughout Syria's decade-long civil war.

The only open humanitarian corridor from Turkey to northern Syrian is Bab al-Hawa, and until today, roads leading to it were too badly damaged or destroyed to cross it.

The first UN lorries bringing aid have finally crossed the damaged border on their way to the region that has been starved of aid since the earthquake struck.

However, "access to the region has been very political," according to Reva Dhingra from the global foreign policy think tank, .

Help was necessary three days ago when people were alive under the rubble

Reva Dhingra, Brookings Institute

In rebel-held areas of Syria's northwest, the humanitarian disaster is unfolding at an unstoppable pace.

This "enclave of specific rebel groups are blocked off from the rest of the world except for that one crossing", Dhingra told The Sun Online.

President Bashar al-Assad's regime flattened and devastated by the disaster, and it is trying to block attempts for international aid to reach rebel-held areas directly.

It's a political and logistical nightmare, she explained, but the issue is also deepened by a "relative lack of interest in the area" by Western nations.

The lack of political pressure to open up access to aid, particularly from the UN, Dhingra says, has helped to play into the Assad-regime's interests to "isolate" the opposition-led area.

"There needed to be political pressure to get aid to this area, and it was necessary three days ago when people were alive under the rubble,"; she said.

Even as beautiful moments like Abdul Hakim being pulled from the rubble are happening, Dhingra warned that "hope is diminishing with every hour that is passing".

The reality, she said "is that a lot of people that could have been saved weren't".