A heartbroken medical student has told how her father’s last act before he was crushed to death in the Turkey earthquake was to buy her a birthday present.

Merve Borta – who studies at Sanko University Medical Faculty – lost both her dad Mehmet and her mother Gulsum, when the quake hit southern Turkey.

She found her dad’s smartphone in the rubble of the family home in the city of Adiyaman, Adiyaman Province and looked up its history.

Merve broke down in tears when she found that his final act before the devastating quake hit was to buy a gift for her birthday.

She said: “My birthday is on 18th February. It’s the first birthday of my life without my parents.

“My father even prepared my gift. I saved my father’s phone from the rubble. His last order was my gift.”

Gulsum and Mehmet Borta – both 53 – were primary school friends and had been married for 30 years.

Nurse Gulsum used to hold her patients’ hands during surgery, Merve said, and Mehmet travelled to villages and teach disabled students to read and write.

Turkey’s disaster management agency (AFAD) has said that 38,044 people are dead and over 108,068 injured in the country. Over 5,814 people have reportedly died in Syria.

The total death toll for the two countries currently stands at 43,858 people.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck early on the morning of Monday, 6th February, in southern Turkey, devastating the south of the country and northern Syria.

A second earthquake of 7.6 magnitude hit the same region again at 11:24am local time on 6th February, causing even more damage.