Live from NPR News in Washington, encore of a coolman, a powerful earthquake with a magnitude

of 7.8 as hits Southeast Turkey and Syria.

Initial reports suggest more than 1200 people have died in both countries.

Many other people are still trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

NPR's Ruth Scherlock reports on the current situation in northern Syria.

Some video filmed by a local journalist in northern Syria, people run in the darkness

and the rain amid collapsed buildings calling out the names of loved ones they're searching

for.

Right, Sali, the head of the White Helmet Civil Defense Group, says the situation is disastrous.

His teams have received reports of dead and wounded in towns and villages across northern

Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

This part of Syria has already been devastated by more than a decade of civil war.

Hospitals have been repeatedly hit by airstrikes by the Syrian regime and its ally Russia.

The United Nations says of the population of more than 4 million people almost all are

already in need of humanitarian aid.

Ruth Scherlock and Piony's Beirut

China has condemned the US decision to shoot down a spy balloon that floated across the

continental US.

When it claims it was nothing more than a weather monitoring device, a US fighter jet fired

a missile at the Chinese balloon on Saturday, collapsing it just off the coast of Mertel

Beach, South Carolina.

NPR's Emily Fang reports China has expressed anger.

...