Stories of miraculous rescues do not stop coming more than 130 hours after the earthquake occurred in Syria and Turkey. Rescuers continue to find survivors who miraculously managed to hold out among the rubble after the massive earthquake, which left more than 25,000 dead.
Despite the fact that the hope of finding survivors fades after 72 hours -because more than 90% of earthquake survivors are rescued within three days of the catastrophe-this Friday the rescue teams in the area of the tragedy managed to get a family of five members out of the rubble.
The rescue occurred in the city of Nurdag, in the province of Gaziantep, where rescue teams They managed to rescue the five members of a family alive who had spent 129 hours buried in the ruins.
The specialists first rescued the mother and one of the daughters and then located the father, who insisted that they release two other daughters trapped nearby first.
After working hours, they were all released and hospitalized for medical tests, according to TRT television.
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AP News reported that people took refuge in a small space that was created in the rubble.
The agency also registered the case of a teenager rescued on Friday who drank his own urine to quench his thirst and survive five days after the earthquake.
More miraculous rescues
Masallah Çiçek, a 55-year-old woman, was also rescued alive early Saturday from the ruins of her apartment in Diyarbakir.
The Anadolu news agency notes that the woman had injuries and was hospitalized, while rescuers continued their work in search of another possible survivor under the same building.
Turkish TV channels broadcast another rescue live early in the morning, when a 70-year-old woman was freed alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, 121 hours after the earthquake.
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Turkish rescue teams also managed to save a two-month-old baby on Saturday, 128 hours after the devastating earthquakes. The baby was rescued from a building that had collapsed from tremors in Hatay province.
And on Friday, rescuers managed to pull several people out of the rubble, such as in Jindires in northeastern Syria, where they rescued six-year-old Moussa Hmeidi.
In Gaziantep (southeastern Turkey), a group of Spanish soldiers also managed to save a mother and her two children. Anadolu Agency reported that in Nurdagi, in the same province, a six-month pregnant woman was rescued alive after spending 115 hours under a tumble of rubble. And an hour later, they saved her six-year-old daughter.
And in Antakya, in the south, an 18-month-old baby and his brother were rescued, NTV reported. A three-year-old girl was also rescued in that town, badly hit by the catastrophe.
(Also: Turkey: mother and her newborn rescued after 4 days under rubble)
Nevertheless, hopes that these “miracles” will continue dwindles by the minute What is happening and the death toll now stands at 25,000, of which almost 22,000 were counted only in Turkish territory.
Monday’s 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes were centered in Kahramanmaras province and affected more than 13 million people in 10 provinces. It is feared that tens of thousands of victims are still under the rubble in a region the size of a European country like Hungary.
Despite the fact that more than 100,000 rescuers and emergency personnel work in the area, its enormous size, the high degree of destruction, the more than a thousand registered aftershocks and the cold complicate the situation.
Search and rescue efforts are continuing in various locations in the hope of finding survivors, but in some areas rescue efforts have stopped and teams have begun to remove rubble.
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The survivors
Among the survivors the situation is also very complicated: Around a million people have been left homeless -according to official data- in a large area of southeastern Turkey that covers ten provinces and is larger than the area of a country like Portugal.
Added to the lack of housing are difficulties with the most basic services of water, electricity and heating. Many hospitals have been damaged and those that continue to function are at the limit due to the high number of injuries. There are also problems with the internet and telephone communication.
(You can read: The story of Johanna Carolina, a Colombian who died after earthquakes)
“When I see the destroyed buildings, the corpses, it’s not in a year or two that I project myself, but I can’t even imagine tomorrow,” explains a Turkish citizen.
Some doctors have already warned of the risk of epidemics if sanitation conditions do not improve and if the population does not have access to water, hygiene products and basic medical care to deal with certain infectious diseases.
According to the UN, at least 870,000 people urgently need food and, in Syria alone, 5.3 million people are left homeless.
ANGIE RUIZ
INTERNATIONAL NEWSPAPER AND AGENCIES
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