In southern Turkey, a dog named Aleks was pulled alive from a collapsed building three weeks after last month’s devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake. The human death toll from the disaster has soared over 50,000, but the rescue of Aleks provided a glimmer of hope.
Teams from a local municipality in central Turkey saved the dog on Wednesday and delivered him to Haytap, a Turkish animal protection association in the city of Antakya.
A video from DHA news agency shows rescuers calling to the trapped dog and reaching between two large concrete slabs. The rescuers are heard encouraging Aleks to come out, and the dog appears alert and in good health when rescued.
Images then showed the rescuers embracing Aleks and offering him water. One local was quoted as saying that every living thing matters to them, whether human or animal.
Haytap has rescued other animals, including dogs, rabbits, cows, and birds, from the rubble in Antakya. The organization’s vets are providing care and treatment for the wounded animals in their tent.
These animal rescue stories have been a balm for the country, which is still reeling from the earthquake, the worst natural disaster in Turkey’s post-Ottoman history.
The death toll from the earthquake, along with a second, 7.5-magnitude temblor that struck just nine hours later, has been put at over 45,000 people in Turkey alone. Almost 6,000 people have been confirmed dead across the border in northern Syria.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in the U.K., the toll in Syria has climbed closer to 7,000 people, but official agencies haven’t updated their figures in several days.
»Rescue workers found a dog alive beneath the rubble 3 weeks after earthquake hit Turkey«
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