A small miracle in the heart of the destruction: a 10-year-old girl was rescued alive from the ruins of a building today (Sunday) in the city of Antakya in southeastern Turkey.
The people of the rescue unit of the municipality of Istanbul published a document of the exciting rescue on the Internet, claiming that the girl was buried under the ruins for more than 147 hours.
The death toll in the earthquake is approaching, according to unofficial estimates, 30,000 people.
While the rescue cases of survivors are diminishing, the public outrage over the handling of the crisis and the conduct of the state that allowed the horrifying scope of the collapse of the buildings is flickering in Turkey.
In the resort town of Samandag, the residents claim that the rescue forces did not come at all to try and pressure the dozens of trapped people, after the deadly noise struck.
Now there remains the grim task of transporting the dead to the morgue.
A citizen sleeps on the street of the city of Samandag in eastern Turkey,
The resident of the town, Barish Yafar, listed to the "British Guardian" his neighbors who were killed, while he is desperately trying to reach the bodies of his parents who were killed when their apartment building collapsed on top of him.
"There aren't enough vehicles to take the dead to the morgue. I saw my childhood friend being taken to the morgue, I wonder to myself, don't they even have the decency to take us properly to the morgue?", wondered the shocked resident.
The city itself, before the earthquake home to 120,000 tourists and a large tourism industry, is completely destroyed.
Lami Dogro, a merchant who lives in the city, laments the fate of his city: "It will take a decade to restore this city to what it was before the earthquake, if the government helps us. If it doesn't help, it will take 15 years. It was such a beautiful city, it's just Horrible".
Elsewhere in Turkey, the rescue operation is facing another problem, increasing violence.
Several German rescue and aid organizations, along with the rescue unit of the Austrian army, stopped their work in eastern Turkey after several shooting incidents between armed groups in the area.
A spokesman for the Austrian army said that clashes between armed groups in the Tay district caused dozens of rescuers from the rescue and rescue unit of the Austrian army to flee and seek refuge in a base used by several other international organizations.
"There is increasing violence between different factions in Turkey and the chance to save lives is in line with the risk to the lives of our people," said Lt. Col. Pierre Kugelweiss of the Austrian army to reporters.
Rescuers in Turkey, photo: Oren Cohen
Evidence of the growing public anger can also be found in the heroes of the hour that the media in Turkey chooses to bring up a miracle.
The mayor of the small town of Erzin, Akish Almasaulo, was praised by the local media after not a single building collapsed in his town, despite its relative proximity to the epicenter.
The reason stated in an interview in the opposition-affiliated newspaper "Jumhorite" is the mayor's insistence on building regulations.
"Throughout my tenure, I did not allow illegal construction in any way. Not even any deviations from what was permitted. The residents would get angry with me. They wondered why I thought I was the only righteous man in the country, because everyone approved deviations and illegal construction. Three months after I was elected, a relative came to me who was punished for illegal construction. I told him there was nothing I could do, and this caused a serious conflict," explained Almasaulo.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us