Thirteen days after the earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria,
Turkish rescue workers found three people alive in the rubble on Saturday
, although one of them, a 12-year-old boy, died shortly after on the way to hospital.
It was a true miracle that they
survived for almost two weeks despite being trapped under rubble
and in freezing weather.
But the number of people rescued alive has dwindled to just a handful in recent days and hopes are beginning to fade.
According to the latest balance,
at least 44,330 people lost their lives
.
The Turkish emergency service Afad estimated this Saturday at 40,642 fatalities from the earthquakes registered so far, the official Anadolu agency reported.
To these are added the 3,688 counted in Syria by the White Helmets rescue group, which operates in the northwestern opposition region, and the official Syrian agency SANA, which offers the count of all other areas under the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. .
The number of wounded rises to 122,757 (108,000 in Turkey and 14,757 in Syria).
Thirteen days after the incident, these data are only a provisional balance, since there are still tens of thousands of bodies under the rubble and
various estimates predict that the final balance will be around or exceed 100,000 deaths.
It is already the biggest catastrophe in the region in almost a century.
The state-run Anadolu News Agency shared footage of rescuers placing a man, woman and child on stretchers
after spending 296 hours buried under rubble
in the Antioch district of Hatay province.
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca shared a video of the 40-year-old woman in a field hospital receiving treatment.
"She's conscious," she tweeted.
In the last few hours,
a 45-year-old man was also rescued alive from under the rubble.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said Friday that rescue efforts are continuing at fewer than 200 sites as
rescuers race against time to find more people alive.
The quake, which occurred in one of the world's most seismically active zones, struck populated areas, where many were asleep,
in houses that had not been built to withstand such powerful ground vibrations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been criticized for the slow response to the disaster and for
allowing shoddy buildings to be built
.
Officials had promised, following a 1999 earthquake that claimed more than 17,000 lives in northwestern Turkey, that building regulations would be tightened.
One of the last bodies to be found was that of the former footballer of the Ghana National Team, Christian Atsu.
It was his manager who confirmed that his body had been found under a collapsed building in Antakya.
The building where soccer player Atsu died, a 12-story luxury apartment block, was built in 2013 when
Turkey had stricter building regulations.
But, to the surprise and indignation of many, the bloc fell apart.
Turkish police arrested the contractor after he tried to flee the country, Anadolu reported last week.
Officials detained dozens of contractors
as the government vows to crack down on lax building regulations.
More than 84,000 buildings have collapsed, urgently need demolition or have been badly damaged by the quake, Turkish Environment Minister Murat Kurum said on Friday.
With information from AFP and EFE
look also
Earthquake in Turkey: they rescue the lifeless body of Ghanaian soccer player Christian Atsu
The height of tragedy in Turkey: five children and their parents die in fire after surviving the earthquake
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