- Rescuers continue to pull out more survivors from the rubble in Turkey and Syria as the death toll from last week’s earthquakes topped 36,000.
- The quakes have killed at least 31,643 people in Turkey as of Monday, and 4,614 people in Syria.
Five days after the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, teams are rushing to save victims that could still be alive under rubble, with a UN liaison officer in Turkey warning that they are “approaching the end of the search and rescue window.”
While calling on the international community to “act immediately” in providing humanitarian aid to Syria, Syrian-American actor Jay Abdo told CNN on Saturday that civilians were “racing against time” to rescue loved ones.
More than 25,000 people have died across both countries, according to authorities.
However, in the midst of tragedy, there have been miraculous scenes of survival and rescue, even days after the quake.
Here’s a list of survivors who, against the odds, were found among the wreckage:
- A teenage girl, Ayşe (Reem Khaled Naasani), was rescued in Hatay Sunday some 162 hours after the quake, according to the Istanbul mayor. And a 50-year-old woman named Guler Agritmis was also rescued Sunday after spending days under the rubble, the Turkish state broadcaster TRT reports.
- Sixty-seven-year-old Abdulkerim Bey and his wife, Senem, were found under the rubble during the sixth day of rescues by Gendarmerie Search and Rescue team in Kahramanmaras on Saturday, according to CNN affiliate CNN Turk.
- A 16-year-old-boy named Hedil was also rescued alive from the Zümrüt apartment in Kahramanmaras, CNN Turk reports.
- In Gaziantep, Turkey, 132 hours after the earthquake struck, Sezai Karabas was rescued shortly after his young daughter. According to CNN Turk, he pleaded with rescuers to search for his wife next, who he believed is still alive in a doorway. “I am forever in your debt,” he told rescuers.
- Around the same time, rescue workers lifted a 34-year-old man, Ergin Guzeldogan, from deep within the ground in the province of Hatay, video from the Municipality of Istanbul showed.
- A 70-year-old woman, named as Menekse Tabak, was rescued from the rubble in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaras, 121 hours after the quake hit.
- A 16-year-old boy was pulled out alive from wreckage in the same region just a few hours earlier. Another teenage survivor, a boy aged 14, was found after 24 hours.
- The same city saw the discovery of multiple families, including two brothers and their mother who were rescued after 78 hours, and a mother and her 6-year-old daughter who were found after 68 hours.
- In what a CNN Turk reporter called a “miracle escape,” six people, including one child, were pulled out of the rubble alive in the 60th hour in the center of Kahramanmaras.
- Sisters Fatma and Merve Demir were rescued from under concrete in Turkey on Wednesday, after spending 62 hours beneath a collapsed building.
- A similar situation transpired in Syria, where two children were wedged between concrete for 36 hours, with one sister shielding the other, before they were rescued.
- A child, 8-year-old Yigit Cakmak, was rescued from a collapsed building in Turkey’s Hatay province, 52 hours after the initial earthquake struck the region. He was captured in the arms of his mother after they were reunited.
- A 10-year old was found alive in the same region after 90 hours, where a 21-year-old man was rescued six hours earlier.
- A newborn baby girl was found alive in Syria on Tuesday with her umbilical cord still attached to her mother, who is believed to have died after giving birth.
