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Earthquake Turkey Syria: Baby rescued after 134 hours

2023-02-12T06:39:49.329Z


More than five days after the devastating tremors in Turkey and Syria, isolated people can still be rescued alive. Meanwhile, the death toll has risen to over 28,000.


Enlarge image

Helping hands carry away the rubble in Antakya on Saturday – one bucket at a time

Photo: Bernat Armangue/AP

The death toll from the severe earthquake in Turkey and Syria has risen to more than 28,000.

As the Turkish authorities announced on Saturday, 24,617 fatalities have now been recovered in Turkey.

According to official figures, at least 3,574 people died on the other side of the border in northern Syria in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Monday morning.

But even five days after the disaster, local media are still reporting isolated rescues:

  • In Turkey's

    Antakya

    , a five-month-old baby was retrieved alive from the rubble after 134 hours, reported the Turkish state television station TRT.

    TV pictures showed how a helper was lowered headlong into a meter-deep hole to get to the baby.

    A six-year-old boy who was buried under rubble for 137 hours was also rescued in Antakya, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

    He was taken to a hospital.

  • According to Anadolu, aid workers rescued a 44-year-old man from the rubble after 138 hours

    in

    İskenderun, Turkey.

  • In the Turkish province of

    Hatay,

    helpers rescued a seven-month-old boy 140 hours after the earthquake, the IHA news agency reported on Saturday evening.

    According to Turkish media reports, a two-year-old had also been rescued in Hatay.

  • In the Turkish province of

    Kahramanmaraş

    , rescue workers recovered a 70-year-old woman alive from the rubble.

  • State-run Anadolu News Agency reported the rescue of a 35-year-old girl and her six-year-old daughter from a collapsed building in

    Adiyaman

    province .

The chances of rescuing survivors decrease as time goes on, and according to experts, the number of victims could increase many times over.

Meanwhile, Turkish authorities have set up makeshift morgues in parking garages, stadiums and gyms where desperate families are searching for their dead loved ones.

In addition, many people lost their homes: according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, more than 1.5 million have now sought shelter in tents, hotels or public emergency shelters.

The World Health Organization (WHO) now assumes that 26 million people in Turkey and Syria could be affected by the disaster, including around five million people who are already considered to be particularly vulnerable.

According to the United Nations, at least 870,000 people in both countries need to be provided with hot meals, and up to 5.3 million people could have become homeless in Syria alone.

"Soon the search and rescue forces will give way to the humanitarian organizations tasked with caring for the extraordinary number of people affected in the coming months," UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Griffiths said in a video on Twitter.

More than 2000 aftershocks

A magnitude 7.7 tremor shook the border area early Monday morning, followed by another magnitude 7.6 tremor at noon.

Since then, there have been more than 2,000 aftershocks in the region by Saturday, according to the Turkish civil protection agency Afad.

sak/dpa/AFP

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2023-02-12

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