Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made his first visit Friday to a region stricken by an earthquake that has killed thousands in his country, his office said.

The president and his wife Asma visited survivors at their bedsides at a hospital in the northern city of Aleppo, images published by Syrian official media showed.

The United States has announced an initial $85 million aid package to help Turkey and Syria recover from the devastating earthquake, while also granting a temporary relief of some Damascus-related sanctions.

An aid convoy reached rebel-held northwestern Syria Thursday, the first since a devastating earthquake that has killed thousands, an official at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing told AFP.

Leveraging years of experience gleaned during Syria's war, the White Helmets are spearheading rescue efforts in the country's rebel-held north following the powerful earthquake that rocked Syria and Turkey.

Here is an overview of the group, whose volunteers are known for their bravery during dramatic rescue operations from bombed out buildings in the middle of the devastating, more than decade-long civil war.

Syria on Wednesday made an official plea to the EU for help after the deadly earthquake that struck it and Turkey this week, the bloc's commissioner for crisis management said.

The European Commission is "encouraging" EU member countries to respond to Syria's request for medical supplies and food, said the commissioner, Janez Lenarcic.

Ridwan Gurre had the instincts to hide from roaring warplanes when he lived in Syria during its civil war.

But little prepared him for the rumble of the 7.8-magnitude quake that devastated his adopted home in Turkey on Monday.

Ratib Matar's family was growing. They needed more space.

Before his granddaughters, now 4 and 5, were born, he built three apartments on an eastern slope overlooking Jerusalem's ancient landscape. The 50-year-old construction contractor moved in with his brother, son, divorced daughter and their young kids — 11 people in all, plus a few geese.

The death toll from the earthquake in southern Turkey and northern Syria has climbed past 9,400, making it the deadliest seismic event in more than a decade.

Turkish authorities updated the country's death toll to 6,957 on Wednesday. In neighboring Syria, the government has reported 1,250 deaths from Monday's pre-dawn earthquake in the areas it controls. The White Helmets, volunteer first responders in a rebel-held enclave, have reported 1,280 deaths.

Residents digging through a collapsed building in a northwest Syrian town discovered a crying infant whose mother appears to have given birth to her while buried underneath the rubble from this week's devastating earthquake, relatives and a doctor said Tuesday.

The newborn girl's umbilical cord was still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was dead, they said. The baby was the only member of her family to survive from the building collapse Monday in the small town of Jinderis, next to the Turkish border, Ramadan Sleiman, a relative, told The Associated Press.

Even before Monday's devastating earthquake, getting aid to all parts of war-battered Syria was fraught with daunting political and logistical challenges.

Those hurdles have only multiplied in the wake of the disaster that has killed thousands in Turkey and Syria and brought down thousands of buildings.