About a week after the deadly earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria, survivors are still being rescued from the ruins.
Three persons, including a kid, were rescued from beneath an apartment building in Antakya, the Turkish province of Hatay, on the thirteenth day of rescue efforts.
After spending about 296 hours buried under the Kanatli apartment building in the heart of the city, the man, mother, and kid were brought to ambulances.
As a result of last week’s earthquake, more than 45,000 people have already died, and that number is sure to rise since more are still missing and over 264,000 apartments in Turkey were devastated.
Turkey now has 39,672 fatalities, whilst Syria, which is next door, has over 5,800. Syria’s death toll, however, has been updated for many days.
Turkish news outlets received television footage of the three survivors being transported to ambulances, providing a very little glimmer of hope to the families who are still in search of their lost loved ones.
Yet the chance of locating someone alive is becoming less and smaller.
Throughout the huge earthquake zone, many foreign rescue teams have already dispersed, while local teams continue to comb through destroyed structures in search of further individuals who beat the odds. According to experts, 24 hours after an earthquake is when most rescues take place.
In his 40s, Hakan Yasinoglu was one of the lucky survivors who was found 278 hours after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake occurred on February 6 in the middle of the night in the southern province of Hatay.
While he lay on a stretcher, doctors could be seen attaching an IV drip to his arm in video.
Among the 11 provinces in the Turkish catastrophe zone, Hatay is one of the worst off.
In the past, the lives of Mustafa Avci, 34, and Osman Halebiye, 14 years old, were spared in Antakya, a historic city in Turkey that was once known as Antioch. Avci was placed on a video chat with his parents while being transported away, and they showed him his newborn child.
“I had given up all hope totally.” This really is a miracle. They returned my kid to me. His father recalled, “I witnessed the wreckage and I felt nobody could be salvaged alive from there.”
According to aid organizations, the survivors will need assistance for months to come since so much essential infrastructure was destroyed.
The majority of fatalities in Syria’s neighbor, which has already been devastated by more than ten years of civil war, have occurred in the northwest, which is under the control of insurgents fighting President Bashar al-Assad. This conflict has complicated efforts to aid those who have been affected by the earthquake.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the sides are said to have engaged in fighting for the first time since the tragedy overnight, with government troops bombing Atareb, a town controlled by rebels that was severely affected by the earthquake.
Thousands of Syrians who had fled their country’s civil conflict to Turkey have, at least temporarily, returned to the houses they had previously left there.
The number of individuals still missing after the earthquake has not been disclosed by either Turkey or Syria.
Growing resentment at what they see as dishonest construction techniques and seriously defective urban development, which led to thousands of houses and businesses collapsing, is felt by families who are still waiting to reunite with relatives in Turkey.
One such structure that collapsed in Antakya, killing hundreds of people, was the Ronesans Rezidans (Renaissance House).
It was advertised as being earthquake-safe, but the results are clear, said Hamza Alpaslan, 47, whose brother had previously resided in the apartment building. “It’s in terrible shape.” Neither cement nor pure iron are present in it. That really is horrible.
Turkey has ordered the imprisonment of more than 100 people, including developers, and committed to look into anybody suspected of being responsible for the collapse of structures.
The United Nations announced a $400 million appeal for Syrians on Thursday in addition to a $1 billion appeal for the Turkish rescue effort.
Mosques all around the globe held absentee funeral prayers on Friday for the deceased in the afflicted area, many of whom were unable to obtain complete burial rituals due to the scale of the catastrophe.
»After 296 hours below, three more Turkish earthquake survivors are rescued«