A family of five on Saturday was pulled out of the rubble of their collapsed house in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, where they had been trapped for 129 hours since Monday’s massive earthquake in a sprawling border region of Turkey and Syria, which has claimed more than 24,000 lives.
Rescuers first extricated mother and daughter Havva and Fatmagul Aslan from among a mound of debris. The teams later reached the father, Hasan Aslan, but he insisted that his other daughter, Zeynep, and son Saltik Bugra be saved first, news agency AP reported. Then, as the father was brought out, rescuers cheered and chanted “God is Great!”
Turkey-Syria earthquake: Catch all the live updates here
Two hours later, a 3-year-old girl and her father were pulled from debris in the town of Islahiye, also in Gaziantep province, and an hour after that a 7-year-old girl was rescued in the province of Hatay, nearly 132 hours after the quake. The rescues brought shimmers of joy amid overwhelming days of devastation.
Many stories of the victims and survivors are making the headlines and garnering the netizens’ attention towards the horrible situation in the earthquake-struck region.
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A teenager trapped under the rubble in Turkey told ABC news that he was forced to drink his own urine during the 94 hours he spent under the debris.
Tens of thousands of local and international rescue workers are still scouring through flattened neighbourhoods despite freezing weather that has compounded the misery of millions now in desperate need of aid. However, amid the destruction and death, survivors continue to emerge.
