Girl, 3, Rescued In Turkey 65 Hours After 7.0 Magnitude Earthquake Struck
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Rescuers succeeded in saving a three-year-old girl from a collapsed apartment building in Turkey 65 hours after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the area.
The huge tremor struck in the Aegean Sea on Friday, October 30, causing buildings to crumble as it shook parts parts of Greece and Turkey.
Rescue efforts continued over the weekend as the death toll rose to at least 64 people, with hundreds more injured. Among those suffering after the event was a family living in an apartment building in Izmir, which collapsed into rubble as a result of the quake.
See footage of the three-year-old family member being taken to an ambulance below:
Turkish state news agency Anadolu said the three-year-old, identified by authorities as Elif Perincek, was pulled from the rubble this morning, November 2, more than 65 hours after the quake first struck.
Perincek’s mother had been rescued earlier along with two others, though sadly one of her siblings lost their lives in the disaster.
Footage shared by Fahrettin Koca showed the young girl being stretchered into an ambulance. Koca said the rescue ‘strengthened’ hope as Perincek ‘said hello to life again’.
Koca added:
We are grateful for our teams.
The three-year-old’s rescue came just hours after authorities found another child, identified as 14-year-old Idil Sirin, alive under the rubble. Sirin had spent more than 58 hours trapped under a collapsed building before rescuers found her.
Onlookers are said to have been heard cheering excitedly as the 14-year-old was pulled from the wreckage. She was given first aid at the scene before being transported to a local hospital, according to CNN.
Elsewhere, a 70-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of a residential building in the early hours of Sunday morning after being trapped for around 33 hours. The man, identified as Ahmet Citim, was taken to hospital and is said to be doing well.
Turkey’s vice president, Fuat Oktay, said 26 buildings that had been badly damaged in the quake would be demolished, BBC News reported. He noted that it is not so much the quake that causes deaths, but the collapse of buildings in the aftermath.
Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said the earthquake struck 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) northeast of the town of Néon Karlovásion on Samos, Greece.
The tremor struck at a relatively shallow depth of 21 kilometers (13 miles), causing a powerful impact at ground level around the epicenter. Following the initial quake, more than 900 aftershocks have been registered, 42 of them with a magnitude over 4.0.
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Topics: News, Earthquake, Now, rescue, Turkey
