Rescuers pulled children and the elderly from the rubble on Feb. 11 as miraculous survival stories coincided with hasty mass burials five days after an earthquake devastated parts of Türkiye, leaving almost 21,848 dead, and over 80,100 wounded.
Tens of thousands of local and international rescue workers are still scouring through flattened neighborhoods 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.
“Is the world there?” asked 70-year-old Menekşe Tabak as she was pulled out from the rubble in the southern city of Kahramanmaraş – the epicentre of Monday’s 7.8-magnitude tremor – to applause and cries praising God.
In southern Hatay, a two-year-old girl was found alive 123 hours after the quake, reported the Hürriyet daily online, adding to numerous children saved long after the disaster, and a pregnant woman who was found on Friday.
Meanwhile, in southern Türkiye, families clutched each other in grief at a cotton field that has been transformed into a cemetery, with an endless stream of bodies arriving for swift burial.
Compounding the anguish, the United Nations has warned that at least 870,000 people urgently need of hot meals across Türkiye and Syria. In Syria alone, up to 5.3 million people may have been made homeless.
Türkiye’s disaster agency on Saturday said nearly 32,000 people from Turkish bodies are working on search and rescue efforts. In addition, there are 8,294 international rescuers.
However, 82 Austrian soldiers on Saturday suspended rescue operations in Hatay over a “worsening security situation”, an army spokesman told AFP.
“There have been clashes between groups,” he said, without giving details.
Officials in the country say 12,141 buildings were either destroyed or seriously damaged in the earthquake.
Police on Friday detained a contractor trying to flee the country after his building collapsed in the catastrophic quake.
Authorities in Kahramanmaraş and Osmaniye have launched investigations into the buildings that have collapsed, according to the Anadolu state news agency.
The tremor was the most powerful and deadliest since 33,000 people died in a 7.8-magnitude tremor in 1939.
source : hurriyetdailynews