Nottinghamshire Police has donated bags full of clothing, shoes, and sleeping bags to those affected by the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

Officers from the force's Operation Eliminate quickly jumped to action to gather items to help some of the women, men and children affected.

The team have been collecting stolen and unclaimed goods such as toys, toiletries and clothing over the last few months and decided to put the mounds of clothing and shoes to better use.

Seeing all the devastation and knowing they could help, Kev Vowles, head of the Historic Exhibit Review Team knowing they had capacity to help - gave his team just two days to get all the clothing and goods together and donated 20 bags of clothing and four bags of other items including lights.

All the donations have then been handed to the head of the Nottingham Turkish Community and will be packed up along with bags of other donations made by members of the public and shipped over to the countries devastated by the earthquake.

Over a week on from the horrific events which have reportedly killed over 37,000 people - the clothing will be handed out to people who have been left with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.

The earthquake has flattened large parts of Turkey and Syria after devastating the countries in the early hours of last Tuesday morning (7 February).

Mr Vowles said: "The people of Turkey and Syria affected by this devastating earthquake are in far more need of the clothing and goods than just leaving them lying unused and waiting to be collected in one of our storage rooms.

"It's horrific what's happened to all of the people who live there so if we can help one or two families get through this nightmare it's well worth it.

"They've been left with nothing and are living in makeshift tents, having lost loved ones, friends, their homes, and all of their possessions.

"Myself and the team worked incredibly hard to get all the goods and clothing together on Thursday and Friday and get them to the centre first thing on Monday as we knew time was of the essence and the items were needed urgently.

"It's great that we can put these items that have been seized and are no longer part of an investigation to better use and help support those in urgent need."